GNU: South Africa’s unity government without a unified plan

South Africa’s Government of National Unity (GNU) has passed its first milestone, reaching 100 days since it was announced in June 2024. Many are taking this moment to reflect on its success to date and its trajectory forward. 
With ten parties competing and vying for control, power and leadership in this unique experiment in South Africa’s young democracy, the stakes are high.
The biggest test for the new government is perhaps South Africa’s economic outlook amid sky-high unemployment; over 11 million people are in need of jobs in the country, with almost half of all young people out of work. 
Combined with the rising cost of living, the poorest of the poor remain worried while struggling to feed their families every day.
South Africa’s biggest trade union, COSATU, has called for a nationwide strike, with marches held across the country this week in response to the lack of progress against joblessness and retrenchments three months into the leadership of the new government.
While abroad, confidence in South Africa has been rising since the announcement of the GNU, the COSATU strikes have dampened the mood in the country.
Analyst Sandile Swana told DW in an interview that South Africans should celebrate the fact that the country has broken out of the monopoly of power held by the African National Congress (ANC) for three decades rather than focusing on the slow pace of progress.
“There are many risks and there are a lot of opportunities, but it will not be an automatic success, it is going to be a lot of work”, he stressed, adding that the country had finally entered an age of competitive, multiparty democracy.
The strikes called by COSATU, which historically has kept close relations with the ANC, are likely indicative of the overall mood in the country when it comes to the ANC, in particular: Even though Nelson Mandela’s liberation party suffered their worst election defeat ever in the May elections, dropping to just over 40 % of the vote, President Ramaphosa retained his position after forming a coalition with the pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA), the single biggest opposition party, as well as several other smaller parties.
Some had hoped that with such little support, Ramaphosa would have handed the reins over to someone else to revitalize the ANC — a party, which for years has been run by the same group of senior politicians at its top-tier levels, who nearly each seem to have been involved in some corruption scandal or another.
Swana noted that against the backdrop of years of stagnation under the ANC, the GNU and al the parties that are involved in it are seen as actively trying to affect change, while stressing that this alone is not an achievement in and of itself, and that presenting it as such would be unfair.
He highlighted that the lack of a comprehensive policy plan at the heart of the GNU to move the country forward was the biggest issue, claiming that the GNU was primarily beholden to business and industry rather than the people on the ground:
“There is a bit of optimism, but we need a plan that belongs to the nation. A clique is running the country at the moment, determined by big business,” he said.
Swana supported his point by stressing that in the first 100 days, no one in the new government had made any comments about the most pressing issues in the country: sufficient energy supply, infrastructure failures, the fight against rampant crime and corruption, not to mention unemployment.
This, he says, makes it difficult to measure the performance of the GNU, while acknowledging that such big challenges cannot simply be solved in just 100 days.
Furthermore, there are considerable conflicts within the GNU that are making headlines: Recently, there have been political discrepancies about the implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI) bill, the biggest change to South Africa’s public health system in decades.
The main oppononent is the DA, arguing that the NHI will be bad for business. 
Further clashes between the DA and the ANC include differences in opinion on the Primary Education Bill, which even resulted in the removal of a local DA mayor in Tshwane (Pretoria).
Through all these disagreements, however, the ANC appears to suffer the most, unable to find a cohesive voice within itself nor within the context of the GNU. 
According to Swana, there are at least some areas where measureable progress has occured in recent months, including logistics, transportation of goods, public transportation with new trains and improvements at the country’s main ports. 
The Department of Home Affairs, run by the DA, meanwhile has also introduced a comprehensive plan to address years of backlog in various applications, from visas to work permits to passports. Generally speaking, there are more MPs visiting their constituents, and there are more ministers paying attention to their portfolios, like labor minister Nomakhosazana Meth, who has been inspecting businesses in certain areas more frequently.
But DW correspondent Thuso Khumalo in Johannesburg agrees that the new government needs to be even more visible to people on the ground if it wants to gain their trust and support.
According to Khumalo, people see that the GNU is slowly moving things forward, “but people have higher expectations: social delivery is not as fast as needed.”
“People … are still not employed, they are still facing crime in their communities,” Khumalo added.
Analyst Daniel Silke told DW that the bottom line is that the mood in the country has improved since the GNU was first announced, and that this could also be attractive to investors: “The fact that the GNU comprises the ANC together with centrist political parties while excluding the extremist side of the political equation in South Africa … is seen more business-friendly.” 
“Foreign investors are certainly looking more positively at South Africa while still sitting on the sidelines to wait to see wether the GNU is more than just an elite agreement”, Silke says.
“This was the best possible outcome under the circumstances, and had therefore a boosting effect on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and also, to some degree, in the strengthening of the Rand,” Silke said, referring to South Africa’s currency.
The South African Rand is 7.5 percent stronger; the bond market has strengthened by 11%; and the JSE’s main index is up over 10% since the new government took over, according to business reports.
However, Silke echoes Swana’s views that the announcement of a substantive policy adjustment in South Africa is what has been missing over the last 100 days: “It really has been more of a window-dressing exercise to create a better image, but the nuts and bolts of where South Africa should be in terms of economic policy remain somewhat elusive.”
Edited by: Sertan Sanderson