GAYTON MCKENZIE: The DA can grab their ball and leave

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s tabling of the budget in parliament on Wednesday has to be seen as a victory for democracy and coalition politics in SA.

In previous years and decades, what the governing party wanted and decreed, it got. Now it needs to court other parties and solve national problems through debate and compromise. This is a process the ANC, and all of us, are still getting used to, but the fact that the initial two percentage point VAT increase proposal came down to two half point increases over two years is all down to the existence of the government of national unity (GNU).

Godongwana has shown a willingness to compromise. The ANC engaged in debate, and the finance minister showed us numerous alternative proposals. We were all asked for our views and inputs. This is the power of the GNU.

No party can now easily get everything they want, and any party that thinks it can bring an all-or-nothing attitude to any decision that gets taken in this government should show us their 50% of the national vote first, because only a party with a majority of the vote can afford to be arrogant and make uncompromising demands.

President Cyril Ramaphosa also showed great patience and humility in allowing all parties to ventilate their concerns and suggestions. He listened endlessly. By today though, something had to be suggested, because there is a fiscal hole that needs to be filled and the VAT hike is part of that solution, unwelcome as any tax will always be.

The price of being in power is the burden of having to make unpopular decisions. The price of being a coalition in power is having to stand together as one to support that decision. The DA can find no sensible way of doing that now, though, because it had already screamed from the rooftops on February 19 that it — and only it — was saving SA from any VAT increase.

The DA declared that it would “never” support any VAT increases. Never. It made posters saying it was fighting for the poor, even though the VAT increase was primarily being proposed so that the truly poor can keep getting their government grants. You can only use words like “never” if you have full power though, or if you are willing to walk away from power if you don’t get everything the way you want it.

Can the DA really believe that it would be better for the country for it to bomb the entire GNU rather than try to support a compromise budget? The party painted itself into that corner on February 19. If you’re going to use a word like “never” in politics, you had better be sure you mean it. What the DA did not take into account was that the ANC, and the other eight parties in our coalition, has been only too aware that the DA would claim it as a victory for the DA alone if the final budget contained no VAT increase.

All GNU parties, including the majority of members of the ANC, were against Godongwana’s original two percentage point VAT hike plan, but only the DA saw it as a chance to score political points at all of our expense by making the fight against VAT its battle alone. That meant it was challenging the rest of the GNU to call their bluff, if that is what it is. It has styled its role in the budget as an “us-versus-them” battle.

What the DA doesn’t so readily tell people though, is how it tried to extract concessions for its support of the budget. The DA would vote for it if it could change the Expropriation Act, or the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, or employment laws, or whatever else. So much for standing on principle.

The DA reminds me of a boy we used to play soccer with as kids, who would just pick up his ball and go home if we upset him in any way or wouldn’t play by whatever rules he invented, because it was his ball. He wasn’t playing with the wellbeing of the nation though. The DA is. It knows only too well that it would be better for political stability, and for the country, if it did not leave the GNU.

After styling itself for years as the champions and darlings of the free market, the DA now seems to be doing things that are needlessly harming SA’s place in the global economy and the world’s perception of us. It is like a woman who has a fight with her boyfriend and then complains bitterly about him to all her friends and family. The fight ends, but everyone now hates the guy, only to see him rock up with her for lunch on Christmas Day, all smiles. Then she wonders why her family doesn’t accept or like her boyfriend.

I would appeal to the DA to stop all the posturing. It is making the GNU look weak, and our enemies are laughing at us. Budgets have caused many a coalition to collapse throughout history and geographies. Right now, unity is more important than political point scoring. We need to be selling our country to the world and to stop the cheap campaigning at SA’s expense.

South Africans need to be told that this is a necessary budget for where we are right now as a country, and that it is a pro-poor budget. We will fix the country, but right now we need to stay viable economically. We need to make these unpopular decisions because we must be willing to pay the price of being in power.

If we can get this budget passed as the GNU, which I believe we can, this will be a victory for how the country can be governed going forward. It will increase confidence in SA, and lead to more investment and growth. SA will become a safe haven for investment. All of the parties in this GNU will need to mature quickly though, and make peace with the fact that they are now in government.

Alternatively, the DA can grab their ball and leave. I know the GNU will endure.

• McKenzie is leader of the Patriotic Alliance.