DA leader John Steenhuisen. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
President Cyril Ramaphosa and Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen have moved to allay concerns that conflict over the signing of the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill into law on Friday might collapse the government of national unity (GNU).
Ramaphosa used his question time in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) and Steenhuisen used his address to the Cape Town press club to hammer home the message that Bela — and the National Health Insurance — did not pose an “existential threat” to their government.
Their parallel interventions came the morning after Ramaphosa convened a dinner for talks with leaders of parties involved in the GNU on Wednesday night to head off a crisis over the Bela Bill, which the DA has opposed since its inception.
Ramaphosa told the NCOP he did not see a threat to the future of the coalition.
“I don’t work on the basis that we are going to differ to a point of even parting ways. I have often worked on the basis of what Nelson Mandela taught us — that for every problem there is a solution,” he said.
“And so you try to find the solution. We confirmed this yesterday that we will find solutions to whatever may arise, because problems will arise and we should never kid ourselves and think that we will not have challenges.”
He said when this happens, the parties will settle the problem by talking it through until sufficient consensus is found.
“Will we take them to arbitration or mediation? No, we will engage among ourselves.”
Steenhuisen’s tone was more confrontational.
He said he had met Ramaphosa to discuss the Bela Bill on Wednesday and that should the president go ahead with signing it, the DA would have to “consider all of our options on the way forward”.
“The same applies to the NHI. Our first instinct is to find solutions to the aspects of the NHI plan that will do lasting damage to South Africa, and our ability to deliver healthcare to all. If we can find those solutions collaboratively we would be delighted,” Steenhuisen said.
“If we can’t, we will pursue the interests of the South African people through every other legal means at our disposal.”
Steenhuisen reiterated the stance displayed by the presidency in a briefing by spokesperson Vincent Magwenya on Wednesday that “conflict over policy in the GNU is not necessarily an existential threat to the government”.
“It is of critical importance to understand that conflict over policy in a multi-party government like the GNU is normal and indeed necessary in a democracy. It is not necessarily an existential threat to the government,” Steenhuisen said.
This did not mean that “the DA would never walk away under any circumstances” and that it would not be a part of a government which was not focused on creating jobs and growing the economy.
If the ANC implemented ruinous economic policy, or sought to compromise the Constitution or undermine the independence of institutions such as the South African Reserve Bank, it would be the DA’s “patriotic duty to leave the government” and join the opposition.
“The DA will not crash the government unless the government is crashing the economy or trashing the Constitution,” he said.
Steenhuisen said the DA accepted that “we cannot get everything our own way inside the government” with 22% of the vote and that the party’s long term and more recent supporters needed to do so too.
While it would be “undemocratic” for the DA to expect to dictate terms, so too would a situation in which “we get none of our priorities implemented”, which was something the party would not accept.
He said the DA held the balance of power because, without it, “the government does not have a majority in parliament” and would not “shy away from conflict when we are confronted with serious and lasting damage to our country or to the Constitution that underpins our democracy”.
“In a multi-party government leaders need to respect the constraints and imperatives of their partners,” he said. “Any leader that tries to ride roughshod over their partners will pay a price, because a time will come when the shoe is on the other foot, and they will need the understanding of those same partners in turn.”
Steenhuisen has warned that Ramaphosa would be violating the letter and the spirit of the statement of intent that formed the basis for parties’ coalition agreement if he signed the Bill.
Ramaphosa stressed that the statement of intent remained central to the coalition pact.
He said there would always be differences of view in the executive because these were normal in any relationship, and more so still in one between members of different political parties.
“Of course we are all from parties that have different manifestos, parties that adhere to different ideologies, but what unites us is the statement of intent.”
It also laid the foundation for forging consensus in the coalition, he said.
“Last night when we met we decided that in ensuring that we enhance good working relationships we will have what we call a processing team, a team that will process whatever needs to be addressed by the leaders of all the political parties.”
“That processing team will identify those issues that we need to discuss and, say, resolve from time to time.”
He acknowledged opposition to the NHI — both from political and business quarters — saying Business Unity South Africa had sent him “a fairly long letter where they raise their objections, as have others”.
“They have requested that I engage them, and I said to the minister: ‘We meet them.’ We are going to meet them and hear the concerns they have been raising over a long time.”
But he added that the NHI was provided for in legislation passed by parliament, which he signed in May, and suggested that discussions would revolve around how the scheme is implemented, not on whether it is done.
“This parliament passed the Act and in doing so it took into account the various inputs that had been made by multiplicity of people through the length and breadth of the country,” Ramaphosa said.
“There are people who still want to talk about the implementation of the NHI and I am that we talk about how this Act is going to be implemented and to hear the concerns that they have.”
He planned to have these discussions in the course of the next few weeks.
The DA had called the president’s decision to sign assent to the NHI Bill a fortnight before the elections a populist stunt.
The Mail & Guardian
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