Cape Town, South Africa (AP) – Conflict is likely among partners in South Africa’s new coalition government but will not be “catastrophic” to its hopes of turning around the country, the leader of the second-largest political party said Thursday.
John Steenhuisen’s Democratic Alliance joined a coalition government led by the long-ruling African National Congress against all expectations after national elections in May, making staunch enemies on both sides of the South African political spectrum partners in government.
Analysts predicted it would be a difficult working relationship – and Steenhuisen called it a “marriage of disadvantage” for Africa’s most advanced economy, burdened by poverty, inequality, unemployment and the failure of state-run enterprises.
Steenhuisen said there would likely be many disagreements between his centre-right representative and the left-wing ANC over the next five years of the parliamentary term to end South Africa’s “deep crisis” and that should be accepted.
“A conflict over policy … is not necessarily an existential threat to the government,” Steenhuisen told a largely elderly lunchtime crowd at a plush Cape Town sports club. “There will be conflict. There will be differences in politics. .”
The ANC and DA came together with eight other smaller parties to form a government of national unity after weeks of arduous negotiations following the May 29 election. The historic deal was brokered after the long-ruling ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, forcing it to seek coalition partners to stay in government. It placed South Africa in uncharted political waters.
A coalition government was finally formed at the end of June and is challenged to manage South Africa’s desperate unemployment rate of 32%, the highest in the world outside a war zone. South Africa’s economy has barely grown over the past decade, and Steenhuisen, a former main opposition leader who is now agriculture minister, said his party was particularly focused on those issues in government.
“Economic growth and job creation. Growth and jobs. I and my party will not let anything stand in its way,” he said.
The conflict Steenhuisen spoke of between the DA and the ANC could be seen on Friday if President Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC leader, signs the education bill, which is strongly opposed by the DA, as Ramaphosa has said he will.
Steenhuisen said his party would sue the government it is part of over the law if Ramaphosa signs it, and accused the ANC of “dissolving” its coalition partners.
The DA is also staunchly opposed to the National Health Act, which was introduced before the election and which effectively makes the government the sole provider of healthcare. Critics, including the DA, say it will destroy the private healthcare sector rather than improve public healthcare. The DA is also committed to challenging it in court, Steenhuisen said, another issue where the two main parties that control the coalition’s fate are at odds.
But Steenhuisen said there is also a “long list” of policies the ANC and DA have agreed on in the 2 1/2 months since forming a coalition government, mostly to overhaul the economy intended to lead Africa. and more broadly in developing countries, but GDP growth was only 1.9 percent in 2022 and 0.6 percent last year.
Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa and the ANC had “no better ally than the Democratic Alliance” when it came to economic reforms that would create jobs and fight poverty.
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