Domestic and international investors hanker after two simple things from the government: a fair amount of political stability and policy certainty. It’s not rocket science. Governments that provide these two ingredients attract investment and flourish. Those that don’t wither and die.
In South Africa we’ve had relative political stability for 29 years (if you discount the many service delivery protests that occur every day across the country), but the events of July 2021 reminded us that such stability is not guaranteed. The criminal, co-ordinated early-morning arson attack on six trucks on the N3 highway on Sunday, which shut down a key national transport artery, reminds us of the type of instability we have allowed to flourish through corruption and lack of crime intelligence and investigative capacity.
Policy certainty has depended on who is in charge in the ANC, but not on the party’s official policy resolutions. Its conference resolutions are a classic case of talking Left, while its actions in the Union Buildings are an example of walking Right — sometimes.
Many observers believe that if the ANC polls less than 50% of the vote in next year’s national elections, South Africa will enter a period of placid tranquillity and policy certainty. That is a myth. As I have said in this column before, the period after next year’s national elections is most likely to be characterised by heightened policy uncertainty and perhaps even some political instability. That’s because a stable, united, coherent opposition coalition is not guaranteed. As we have seen since 2016, our coalitions have been messy and unstable.
Thus, in our present political moment, the quest for certainty and stability should be every political party’s priority. It is urgent and serious. Further uncertainty will be the difference between a deterioration of our circumstances or a period of improvement. If South Africa emerges from next year’s election with unstable coalition combinations, we are in for a rocky ride.
A stable, united, coherent opposition coalition is not guaranteed. As we have witnessed since 2016, our coalitions have been messy and unstable
The DA’s attempt to give the country some post-2024 stability and certainty has been to build a “moonshot pact”. The aim is to “stop the looming ANC-EFF coalition” from taking power nationally and in provinces such as Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
You can’t blame the architects of this plan for their explicitness: Joburg is swiftly descending into a Lagos, thanks to the ANC-EFF coalition running it. The DA says the aim of this moonshot pact is to “bring the combined ANC-EFF vote share below 50% in the 2024 national election, and for the combined pact partners to get the 50% plus one required to form a pact government”.
For now, though, the DA does not look as if it is close to building a coalition that can get to 50% plus one. Parties explicitly up for the pact are the DA, IFP, FF+, ActionSA, the United Independent Movement (UIM) and the Spectrum National Party.
It’s just too narrow a band. The IFP is not the behemoth it used to be. Mangosuthu Buthelezi and the IFP used to dominate the late Zulu king and projected themselves as the political face of the Zulu people and the KZN rural heartland. With the new king shying away from Buthelezi, that’s no longer guaranteed. The DA and the FF+ have not grown significantly enough and remain pretty much the parties they were 10 years ago in terms of voter attractiveness. ActionSA has been damaged by its leader’s secret payment of R12m for a book about himself. It remains an unknown quantity at a national level. The UIM and Spectrum are, with all due respect, still small players.
For this initiative to gain traction, more parties need to come on board. Where is the ACDP? Where is Mmusi Maimane’s band of independents? Where are Bantu Holomisa and even Cope’s new gang of leaders? Rise Mzansi? Crucially, why aren’t the leaders of these parties doing anything much to build a workable coalition for a post-2024 South Africa? The cat seems to have got their tongues. The only time you hear from most of them is when they criticise the DA’s moonshot initiative.
Here is the bottom line: if things continue this way, instability and uncertainty will be with us for another five years.
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