A sustainable relationship between the ANC and the DA in government will depend on the former accepting the need to share power and the latter respecting the ANC’s much larger mandate, writes the author. (Supplied/GCIS)
A sustainable relationship between the ANC and the DA in government will depend on the former accepting the need to share power and the latter respecting the ANC’s much larger mandate, writes Ryan Coetzee.
After two weeks of tense – sometimes fraught – negotiations, the Democratic Alliance has decided to enter government with six Cabinet ministers and the same number of deputies, including a deputy minister of finance.
The decision, in the end, depended on the answer to this question: Would the DA’s team be able to deliver positive change in government and be seen to be doing so, or would the ANC and the bureaucracy it has built over 30 years make it impossible? It’s not a question that lends itself to a definitive answer because it concerns a hypothetical future, although the ANC’s past behaviour and, more immediately, its behavior during the negotiations, gives one a clear indication of the scale of the task.
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