A bumpy road ahead for South African politics

The budget vote has redefined South Africa’s political landscape.

The second-biggest political party in the country, the DA, finds itself in no-man’s land. It is damned if it stays in the government of national unity (GNU) and damned if it leaves.

Big business wins if it stays because the markets are big on political stability. But whether it stays or not is not in its hands any more.

The DA’s biggest partner in the GNU, the ANC, is reverting to its default mode: no president finishes two full terms in office and the DA is the fall guy this time around.

The ANC’s national working committee (NWC) is supposed to decide whether it stays in the GNU with its current partners, or seek new partners after it decided the “DA has defined itself outside of the GNU”.

The truth of the matter is that a faction of the ANC wants the DA out of government, but most importantly, it wants to take over the organisation before an elective conference chooses new leadership.

What does that mean? For deputy party president Paul Mashatile’s faction to take over, Cyril Ramaphosa and “his” DA must go.

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It is not a hard sell to those who never wanted the DA in government in the first place. It is no secret that no president of the ANC has completed two full terms in office.

It wouldn’t be a break with tradition for the party to replace the president now. But to do that, there needs to be reasoning that can be sold to the ANC branch members and also to South Africans in general.

“Ramaphosa went into a coalition with our traditional enemies” sounds logical to all and sundry.

The reasons don’t really have to make sense as was the case when (former) president Thabo Mbeki was recalled. His biggest crime back then was being “aloof”.

So, Ramaphosa partnering with the DA would be an even bigger “crime”. Only those with short memories will have forgotten that the president has been living on borrowed time since the Phala Phala “dollars-in-the-couch” matter.

The same ANC that shielded the president back then in parliament is the one that will use the coalition with the DA to attempt to cut short his time in office.

Mashatile’s faction within the ANC does realise that the ANC’s time in office is coming to an end, it might be a slow and prolonged exit, but it is happening.

ALSO READ: ANC’s budget battle proves its power is waning

Next year’s local government elections will just be another signpost on the road out of power.

If they were to wait for natural process to take its course, it would take another four years of waiting, by which time the electorate could be at a point where they don’t hand the ANC enough of a vote to dictate who joins them in government.

Another big factor that will determine who comes into government and who leaves the Union Buildings is who is outside government.

Mashatile’s faction in the ANC knows that uMkhonto weSizwe Party and the EFF are waiting to partner it at a moment’s notice.

They both have one thing in common: a not-so-hidden dislike of the current president.

It would not take much for either of these parties to partner with a Mashatile-led faction of the ANC if it means that the man they do not want in office is gone.

The next few days will reveal just how long the current stability will last. By the look of things, the budget vote was just the beginning of some serious turbulence.

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