Can the ANC and the DA get past the vast differences in their respective stances on transformation (or redress, as the DA calls it)?
For many in the ANC, the DA’s constitutional challenge against the Employment Equity Amendment Act, heard in court this week, further complicates the issue of the DA’s continued participation in the GNU.
The GNU is already on shaky ground after the impasse over the national budget, which culminated in finance minister Enoch Godongwana having to bin two iterations of it. He is now set to deliver a third on May 21.
For the DA, racial transformation at all levels will result from a growing economy that is creating jobs rapidly. The ANC, on the other hand, sees the regulatory route as the solution, with businesses expected to adhere to race-based targets, mostly at senior level.
“The problem with our economy, and the biggest anti-transformation factor, is that it is shrinking,” DA federal council chair Helen Zille told a media briefing on Monday. “Our priority should be to get people into jobs, which at the upper echelons happens over time, through experience and education. Yes, it’s important to have [transformation at the top] too, but to define that as the problem is to get the definition of the problem completely wrong.”
The DA’s legal challenge and its opposition to amendments to the Employment Equity Amendment Act began two years ago, during the sixth administration. The DA argues that the act introduces “rigid national race quotas”.
The department of employment & labour last month published targets for 18 sectors across the economy for the next five years. The regulations set specific targets for four upper levels of employment: top management, senior management, middle management and skilled technical management. The aim is to increase the representation of historically disadvantaged groups, based on race, gender and disability. The ANC describes the new law as a “constitutional imperative”.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, reacting at a media briefing to the DA court case, said the DA’s “hatred for transformation [is] shameless”.
He added: “The act is not an attack on anyone. Its recent amendments, achieved through consensus, ensure sectoral targets that reflect regional realities, support SMMEs and hold employers accountable in state contracts. These reforms are modest, rational and necessary. Transformation, equity and diversity are not up for negotiation. We will not surrender to elitist apartheid nostalgia or legal posturing.”
While the DA describes the targets set by the act as rigid quotas, minister of employment & labour Nomakhosazana Meth (cited as the first respondent in the DA’s case) describes them as flexible employment equity targets.
The DA points out that companies can be fined up to 10% of their turnover — not their profit — for failing to adhere to the law, while Meth says businesses may put forward “reasonable grounds” as justification for their failure to meet the targets.
“The DA’s challenge seeks to disrupt efforts aimed at achieving equitable representation and maintaining the inherently unfair status quo,” Meth said on the eve of the court proceedings. “By opposing these amendments, the DA is actively sabotaging the transformation goals that have been pursued since the end of the apartheid era, effectively hindering progress towards equality and fairness in the workplace.”
Grow the skills and grow the economy: that combination will get you the quickest transformation ever
— Helen Zille
However, Zille said the ANC’s rationale for the legislation is flawed. In the DA’s founding affidavit to the case, party leader John Steenhuisen calls the regulations a “grand social engineering scheme” and unconstitutional, adding that they amount to unfair discrimination. The quotas in the new law are different, he says, from the numerical targets set in the past, and amount to “job reservation”.
He adds: “The scheme has the potential to create an absolute barrier to employment or advancement for members of particular racial groups in a particular area.”
Zille said the biggest impact of the law would be on the economy.
“It will continue to drive unemployment up and economic growth down, and will make far more people unemployed and marginalised in our economy than they already are.
“One thing I’ve learnt in all my years in politics is that you never judge a bill by the intention of the government. You judge the act that follows by the impact it has in the real world, and that is the critical measure.”
Pressed on how to ensure transformation in a country still reeling from colonial and apartheid inequalities, Zille doubled down, saying the only way to truly transform South African society is to rapidly grow the economy.
“Let’s assume that all employers want to be racist — it’s not so, but let’s assume that. If the economy is growing, there aren’t enough whites in this country [to fill all senior posts], they are a [diminishing] minority, you won’t find them. Ditto for the other minorities.
“So the best way to transform is to grow the economy. The worst way is to apply methods that will shrink it. That is just so obvious. Grow the skills and grow the economy: that combination will get you the quickest transformation ever and an economic boom like nothing else.”
Zille further argued that the DA is not “flying blind” with its argument that the legislation will thwart investment and growth. She pointed to a number of surveys of businesses and investors, local and foreign, indicating that among the primary barriers to growth and investment are energy availability and “race laws”. “That’s the consequence. It does not help to transform anything, driving away businesses like that.”
Zille is keenly aware of the potential fallout in the governing coalition over the DA’s challenge, but said the party is not in the GNU to please the ANC but to stand up for South Africans and make the country a success.
ANC attitudes towards the DA have hardened over the budget impasse. The latest court case will likely intensify that. The party is set to discuss the DA’s continued participation in the GNU at its next national executive committee (NEC) meeting, expected to take place in the coming weeks.
Even if we were to replace the DA, the parties we substitute for it may not align with the ANC
— Fikile Mbalula
The budget dispute and policy differences between the parties show that the ANC has not yet come to terms with the reality that it is co-governing from a vastly weakened position than it had in the inaugural GNU back in 1994. In the first democratic election the ANC won 252 of the 400 seats in parliament, giving it 62% and a commanding majority. Now it has just 159 seats, or 40%.
At the media briefing Zille said the GNU’s clearing house or dispute resolution mechanism, meant to address policy differences in areas like employment equity legislation, is simply not functioning and “frankly, a waste of time”. She admitted that partners need to talk more, but added that of seven meetings arranged between her and Mbalula he honoured only two — and was late for both of them, by 90 and 45 minutes respectively.
For his part, Mbalula said the ANC is “not in a hurry” to dismiss parties from the GNU. “The GNU is not a melting pot; parties are in it but they disagree on policy issues. Even if we were to replace the DA, the parties we substitute for it may not align with the ANC. Parties won’t come and change their identity.”
Mbalula also downplayed reports of a revolt by the ANC’s parliamentary caucus over the DA’s continued participation in the GNU, though he admitted that there is unhappiness in caucus ranks over the DA’s stance on the budget.
At an event in Pretoria on Sunday Mbalula told journalists: “Yes, the caucus expressed its views, but caucus is caucus. It takes orders. [No-one in] the ANC [is in a position] to undo the GNU. No caucus can revolt against the ANC; it will never happen.” Mbalula is correct in the sense that, unlike in the British parliamentary system, South Africa’s MPs are appointed by their parties, not elected directly by voters in constituencies. ANC MPs owe their places in parliament to whoever controls the party list.
The NEC meeting is likely to be tense, though, with calls expected for the DA to be punished or expelled from the GNU given the unhappiness over its stance on the budget as well as its court challenges to the Employment Equity Amendment Act and the Expropriation Act.
But in the event of the GNU remaining intact beyond that meeting, it may represent a new dawn: that the reality of the ANC’s electoral fall from grace has finally hit home.
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