ANC reunion coalition in the cards

The ANC’s National executive Committee has decided to broaden the GNU, by reaching out to the EFF and MK, as well as minor players like ActionSA and BOSA. This resolution, following a four-day NEC meeting concluding on August 4, is somehow not causing the panic it should.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has framed the expansion as a “stabilizing measure”, though the only thing it has the potential to stabilise is the ANC itself. The EFF and MK, as splinter groups of the ANC, would between them consolidate the 2/3rds of the vote which has been scattered between the three since they broke off from the mother party.

As usual, the VF+ has not yet responded to this development in any official capacity. But pressure is on for them to take a stronger stand, as many of their members and supporters continue to grumble about their fruitless participation in the GNU. Several members have left the party already, and support in Pretoria is down by more than half in polls.

Phil Craig of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group gave us some comment:

“It has been obvious to anyone with the courage to look that the GNU is not in the best interests of the Western Cape people. It should be no surprise that the ANC are trying to consolidate the power of the African nationalists by courting MK and the EFF. They are intentionally weakening whatever miniscule amount of influence the DA currently has. In the Western Cape, we didn’t vote for African nationalism, and the only way for us to really address the challenges of crime, unemployment, and economic stagnation is to reject African nationalism entirely and to go our own way via Cape Independence.”

The DA staunchly opposes the expansion of course, arguing it “undermines the GNU’s cohesion”. The ANC has been more bitter and aggressive lately, having expelled two of the party’s, ministerial appointments for attempting to engage in talks with the United States during the tariff crisis, while the ANC sat on its hands without any valid delegate to Washington after Mcebisi Jonas lost his credentials for disparaging remarks toward the American President.

Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula’s latest diatribe attacking the DA for opposing racial discrimination policies, labelling the DA “anti-transformation,” accompanied a return to more acerbic remarks about the inherent evils of the white race that we have grown used to. NEC member Mzwandile Masina told Newzroom Afrika dismissed the DA’s objections, as usual:

“This GNU is led by ourselves. The DA will have to accept that we are resetting the button. We are bringing others who will be prepared to subscribe. What we will not accept are conditions, because previously we were given ridiculous conditions which we could not accept, which is why other parties are not necessarily part of the GNU,”

The ANC have taken a smart stance by declaring they aren’t expelling the DA (because that would spook investors), but are clearly pursuing what the labour courts call “constructive dismissal” – by being as relentlessly hostile, insulting and uncooperative with their largest coalition partner, they force the DA to either continue taking it lying down or leave, which they can’t do, because they’ve staked their entire purpose on it. The time to leave the GNU was ten red lines ago. Leaving now would simply look pathetic, walking away after a beating.

While the DA asserts its role in the GNU is to “rescue South Africa,” not prop up ANC agendas, they have tended to rubberstamp ANC policies – the only areas in which they have had a hand on the tiller are Home Affairs and the DFFE, where they have pushed for digital ID and universal surveillance, as well as draconian central planning policies designed to drive the economy down to net-zero. The latter, under the Climate Change Act, will empower whoever holds the DFFEE to impose arbitrary emissions targets on any sector, region, or individual company. That’s power equal to the Soviet commissars.

The DA are now a mere containment vessel for disaffected minorities and brainwashed rainbow-nation believers, enforcing ANC transformation policies like AgriBEE and the eradication of Afrikaans in public schools while liquidating the wealth of their voters in the Cape to fund land invaders.

Once they leave the GNU, their entire raison d’etre will disappear – the DA survive by selling the hope that South Africa can be governed properly, and that nonracialism and Western institutions can succeed in a divided South Africa. The realisation of an ANC reunion will bring about the “doomsday” scenario they sold to their voters last year, and by leaving they will be admitting that they can never win, and will be forced to pursue a “southern strategy” of protecting the Cape (and maybe one or two northern metros if they’re lucky) with all the baggage of their past indulgence of ANC cadres, racial procurement policies and land invaders at the local level hanging over them.

If the enthusiasm of the white population dulls, they could lose enough to smaller parties that they will be tempted to invite the ANC back into government in the Cape, a sure path to suicide, but one which Geordin Hill-Lewis and similar thinkers would surely endorse, as his welcoming stance towards saboteur floor-crossers from the EFF and ANC earlier this year shows. By inviting in the local leadership of the two parties into the DA, they have acquired SSA moles (so says my intel on the matter) who have no interest in furthering the DA’s stated purpose.

The MK and EFF have been coy with their responses to the ANC’s new overtures. The ANC is optimistic the EFF will avoid “ridiculous conditions,” though as everyone knows, Malema is a loose cannon, and controlling him will be difficult. Nevertheless, comments from Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year that Malema’s “true home” is the ANC, and that he should come back to the fold, should have suggested that this invitation was inevitable. I, for one, thought he was just teasing, but now it appears as if they are serious.

The MK Party’s stance is muddied by its ongoing challenge to the 2024 election results, which it deems fraudulent, but everything is negotiable with the ANC. Nobody can succeed Jacob Zuma, and his schism is a splinter in the eye of the movement, more so than the EFF is.

Paul Mashatile, who is the leading voice in the NEC at the moment, has been increasingly vocal about overtures to the schismatic parties in the past six months, though media tends not to cover the events he gave these speeches to in a great deal of detail.

The ANC will be widening its base as the final pieces of Zimbabwe-style economic transformation legislature are slotting into place, and the state heads for fiscal collapse. This is the endgame, and the DA and VF+ are still blocking their own strikers.