Mbalula: Democratic Alliance is welcome to leave the GNU

ANC secretary general Fikilie Mbalula has hit back at the Democratic Alliance (DA) federal council chair Helen Zille, dismissing her recent claims that there is no government of national unity (GNU) but rather a coalition between the two parties.

ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula. Photo: Luba Lesolle/Gallo Images

Mbalula told journalists on Thursday on the sidelines of the ANC’s national executive meeting in Ekurhuleni that Zille was a mouthpiece of the opposition seeking to sow discord within the unity government.

President Cyril Ramaphosa put together the GNU after the ANC failed to secure a majority in the 29 May general elections, winning just over 40% of the national vote while the DA, the main opposition party, received 21.8%.

The unity government consists of the ANC, the DA, Inkatha Freedom Party, Rise Mzansi, Good, Patriotic Alliance, Al Jama-ah, Freedom Front Plus,  Pan Africanist Congress and United Democratic Movement.

On Thursday Mbalula said Zille’s comments were an attempt to destroy the ANC.

“We are a leading party, the largest one, the biggest expression of the will of the people. We are not going to be engaged in polemics with Zille or whoever wishes,” he said.

“Stop being irritated by Zille every time she says she wants to see the ANC dead. It is her job, like all others.”

Zille, in a video circulated on social media from a post-election dialogue hosted by the German Free Democrats-aligned Friedrich Naumann Foundation on Wednesday, claimed that the DA and ANC had entered into a coalition government not a GNU.

In the video, she is heard saying that Ramaphosa had come up with the notion of a government of national unity which “he thought would be a better way of selling the concept of a coalition to his own party”.

“A government of national unity brings all the parties together that would include the EFF [Economic Freedom Fighters] and MK [Umkhonto weSizwe] party, which it did not,” Zille said.

“But it still gave the president the fig leaf he needed to bring in all sorts of smaller parties to say ‘I’m not in a coalition with the DA’. Now the truth is that we [the DA and ANC] are actually in a coalition because a coalition means that if a party withdraws from the coalition that the party falls.”

Zille added that the DA was counting on the disintegration of the ANC and the potential resignation of Ramaphosa as party leader after 2027 to position itself as the largest political party in South Africa to end the ANC’s three-decade dominance.

“The ANC does its polling and it knows that its trump card is Cyril Ramaphosa. If they lose Cyril Ramaphosa they will go down, if they are lucky, to 25% or 20%,” she said.

She said the DA also leveraged the rand exchange rate during GNU negotiations to gain the upper hand.

”One of the strongest tools we had in the negotiations was the value of the rand. Whenever things were going well, the rand rose; whenever things went badly, the rand fell,” she said.

On Thursday, Mbalula said if Zille was unsatisfied with the GNU arrangement, she was free to leave, adding that the ANC was not “going to beg” anyone to stay in the agreement.

“Even Zille, we are not begging her. If she wants to leave the GNU, she can leave but we have invited everybody to work together and they have agreed and we are working together,” he said.

He said the electorate had mandated the ANC to find partners to work with and form a government, adding: “So why should we argue that — let’s work for the people.”

Mbalula said the ANC would focus on stabilising the country and ensuring that the government was functional.

“The question [that remains is] can the ANC do better with the 40% [it received] and the leadership it has in terms of safeguarding power and leading South Africa? The country is stable; that is the reality. Everything is on track and the government is running,” he said.

The EFF has previously criticised the unity government as a coalition seeking to reverse the progress made in securing the freedom and rights of black people.

By Mandisa Nyathi and originally appeared in the Mail & Guardian