Parties must spell out their coalition dos and don’ts

There has been much hair-tearing and chest-beating this week over the “frogkissing” interview granted by EFF president Julius Malema to News24’s Qaanitah Hunter, in which the EFF leader indicated for the first time his party’s willingness to enter a coalition with the ANC after the 2024 elections.

The critique of Malema’s bombshell has largely taken two forms. First, outrage from the ANC over his apparent meddling in internal party matters and the inconsistency of his support for the leaders of its various factions. And second, warning signals from political analysts about the dangers of an ANC-EFF coalition in national government — particularly given Malema’s assertion that “the ANC in 2024 needs a radical leftist coalition [partner] that will force its hand”.

The inimitable minister of justice & correctional services Ronald Lamola one of my personal picks for ANC deputy president — was unambiguous in his censure of Malema: “There can’t be someone who stands up in a press briefing and threatens the whole ANC. When it suits them, Paul Mashatile is a useless person. He’s a junior leader of the ANC, they cannot negotiate with him.”

For the market analysts, the prospect of an EFFANC coalition presages the “jump to the left” which it has long been feared the ANC would take under the stewardship of a leadership enamoured of expropriation without compensation and sceptical about the independence of the Reserve Bank, among other constitutional matters. They warned of plummeting investor confidence and profound economic uncertainly that might accompany such a post-election union.

All of this is true, important and relevant. But I drew a third and arguably far more important conclusion from Malema’s interview: the 2024 elections are about 18 months away and the EFF president is the only party leader to have yet given voters a detailed insight into what his party’s coalition policy will be going into the election campaign.

Malema alone has given us information based upon which we are in a position to make informed voting decisions. Not only did he lay out the cast of characters he is willing to negotiate a government with, he clarified his choices with a strategy expressed in policy and ideological terms. However you may feel about the interview, we know, for better or worse, what the EFF’s intentions are going into the elections and the government negotiations which will likely follow.

By contrast, the other major political players — particularly the ANC and the DA — have yet to give us any indication of how they plan to approach the very likely post-election coalition negotiations. If their plan is simply to tell us how they will govern alone if they win over 50% of the ballot, then it is clear that both the governing party and the official opposition remain in the grip of a two-party paradigm which is all but extinct.

We have largely reached a consensus about the likely outcome of the next election: the ANC will fall below 50% of the vote for the first time in SA’s history. So why has it not yet formally tabled — or even strategically seeded via media interviews —a comprehensive policy outlining how it will approach coalition negotiations at national level in the event of such an outcome? Perhaps party strategists don’t want to risk projecting weakness by predicting their own demise, and instead they hope to get the ANC over the mark through sheer force of self-confidence.

The DA has no such excuse: nobody thinks for a moment that it will come anywhere close to an outright majority, yet we still allow the party to set out its election offer in terms of outright wins at both national and provincial levels.

Party strategists likely hope to bumble their way through the debate by speaking confidently about the DA’s record in leading coalitions thus far. And while there might be some merit to such an approach, the DA’s record in local government coalitions tells us absolutely nothing about how it will approach macroeconomic policy, foreign policy, criminal justice and defence policy and the many other issues which are not at all represented in the local government sphere.

Here lies the crux of the problem: either we have a group of political parties hoping that magical thinking will enable them to avoid even thinking about the complexities of coalition government at national level; or they already have policies and plans in place which they are simply unwilling to share with the voting public.

Either way, this does not bode well for the most important general election in SA’s history.

It’s time that we placed pressure on every single candidate and every single political party contesting the elections to outline, in detail, what their approach will be not only to the negotiation of a coalition government, but also to the daily business of multiparty governance at the national level. How will they approach budget votes? And constitutional amendments? What about critical independent institutional appointments?

What will be the redline issues on which they will be unwilling to negotiate? And what legislation and legislative reforms do they plan to prioritise going into the seventh parliament of the republic?

Beware the political parties still preoccupied with winning — rather than governing — in 2024. And make your voting choices accordingly.