ANTHONY BUTLER: Weighing the DA’s slice of the unity government

Some party members are unhappy with GNU balance of power, but a closer breakdown is warranted

First published in Business Day

26 JULY 2024

ANTHONY BUTLER

We all know ANC activists who have noisily condemned the government of national unity (GNU). But DA supporters have more quietly, but equally vehemently, expressed discontent with the grand coalition.

Such scepticism is nothing new. A July 2022 Social Research Foundation poll suggested that two-thirds of ANC voters would “compromise party values … for the sake of creating a stable coalition”. Only four out of 10 DA voters were happy to do so.

Making matters worse is a perception that the ANC has benefited most from the deal. The key evidence presented by DA critics is a lack of proportionality in the allocation of meaningful ministerial positions.

American social scientist William Gamson first suggested in 1961 that parties making coalition deals expect the “payoff” from the deal to be proportional to the “resources” they bring to it. A decade later, European political scientists recast this insight as “Gamson’s Law”: the key resource parties possess — the proportion of seats they hold in the legislature — will closely match the share of ministerial portfolios they secure.

There have not been many laws in political science, and the few that have emerged have eventually turned out to be wrong. It was therefore a happy surprise for proponents of Gamson’s Law that numerous empirical studies of coalition formation, in the years that followed, confirmed that parties reliably secured ministerial positions in proportion to the legislative seats they held.

The absence of this relationship in SA has been a key basis for DA member discontent. The parties in the GNU together hold 287 seats out of the total 400 in the national assembly. The new government includes 34 cabinet ministers and 38 deputy ministers.

The ANC secured 159 seats in the National Assembly, and this translated to 22 cabinet positions and 31 deputy ministerial positions. In percentage terms, 55% of GNU seats led to 65% of cabinet positions and 82% of deputy ministerial positions.

The DA secured 87 seats in parliament but was allocated only six cabinet posts and five deputy ministerial positions. A total of 30% of GNU seats brought just 18% of cabinet portfolios and 13% of deputy ministerial positions. Adding insult to injury, many DA activists believe the party has been deprived of the most powerful and prestigious portfolios, notably in foreign affairs and the economy cluster.

However, there are four considerations DA activists should bear in mind before they condemn their negotiating team. The first is that Gamson’s Law derives from the experiences of parliamentary systems in Western Europe. A landmark study published earlier in 2024 in European Political Science Review demonstrated that it “does not travel especially well” across constitutional types or parts of the world.

Second, the biggest cause of disproportion is deputy ministerial portfolios that are mostly packed with ANC hacks, but these ministers have strictly limited powers. And third, “payoff” must be understood negatively as well as positively. The DA has steered clear of “no-win” departments and “ministerial graveyards”. It has also minimised its exposure to potential coalition collapse by deploying mostly inconsequential leaders to the executive. Four of the six DA cabinet ministers — Siviwe Gwarube, Solly Malatsi, Leon Schreiber and Dean Macpherson — are political toddlers in their 30s.

Finally, payoff isn’t just about bums on seats round the cabinet table. Long-standing demands from the DA and the IFP for devolution of powers to provinces and metropolitan authorities are likely to materialise across several sectors. The broad principle of “sufficient consensus” set out in the GNU’s founding statement of intent meanwhile places an effective policy veto in DA hands.

Sceptical activists doubtless need persuading about the merits of the coalition deal. However, the payoffs from the GNU are not so unbalanced so as to bring any early DA rebellion against it.

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.

ANTHONY BUTLER: Brinkmanship over cabinet posts shows GNU is not yet government

Pact provides shared framework for parties to interact constructively and for citizens to adapt to unfamiliar terrain

First published in Business Day

28 JUNE 2024

In the face of last-minute brinkmanship over cabinet posts we have been reminded once again that the government of national unity (GNU) is not yet a government at all.

A GNU is rather a useful idea, one that exists only because a particular group of people have decided it does. It provides a shared framework for parties to interact constructively with each other and for citizens to adapt to an unfamiliar political terrain.

The GNU’s foundational “statement of intent” included an agreement that its composition “shall be discussed and agreed among the existing parties, whenever new parties desire to be part of the GNU”. This basic commitment was not respected, which provided an early reminder that the statement is not binding. It is clear that a GNU can quickly disappear in a puff of smoke.

The idea of a GNU has been most attractive to the bigger parties involved. The ANC doesn’t have to admit it lost; instead it has been “sent a message” to work with others. The DA can participate in national government despite a stagnant support base. And the IFP can govern a province without actually having to win it.

On matters of process, the GNU commits to the magical logic of “sufficient consensus”, which arises when “parties to the GNU representing 60% of seats in the National Assembly agree”. This means the ANC and DA both have an effective veto — a huge ANC concession — so long, of course, as the statement of intent is respected, and the parties can agree precisely which kinds of decisions require cross-party consensus.

If the sharing out of ministerial portfolios gets back on track, the far harder part — reaching detailed agreement on policy — still lies ahead. Once a cabinet is sworn in there will be a policy lekgotla, followed by “an all-inclusive national dialogue” in which parties, civil society, labour and business will supposedly forge “a national social compact”. Such road-signs point towards the all-too-familiar national policy quagmire.

Moreover, the smaller parties remain a problem, adding needless complexity and mostly being distinguished by the personalities of their leaders rather than by any potential contribution they might make. Complexity can undermine coalition stability, but these parties also provide the essential “national unity” fig leaf any viable coalition now needs.

The good news is that the resource-seeking and grievance-based parties are on the outside. There has been an early commitment to defend constitutionalism, the current governance framework and institutional innovations such as Operation Vulindlela. Real policy overlap exists between the broad reform factions of the ANC, DA and IFP.

If the DA temporarily withdraws from the GNU negotiations, the basic arithmetic will not change. The ANC will be back where it began: with an unpalatable — hopefully impossible — choice between the EFF and MK. President Cyril Ramaphosa will probably be forced to form a minority government, and economic turbulence and party donor pressures will redouble.

Meanwhile, the tortuous negotiations have helped many voters to work through their confusion and pain. While there is little evidence to support the famous theory that there are five stages of grief, there has been a lot of denial and anger, and accusations and betrayal, on display.

Parties desperate to avoid alienation of their supporters, and possible desertion of their activists, have been bought time by the GNU. Weeks of negotiation have allowed party foot soldiers and shocked citizens to progress far towards acceptance that we live in a new political world.

Some of them, sadly, may need longer. But amid a national crisis the country cannot afford a prolonged stalemate.

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.