BUTI MANAMELA: GNU participation is not licence to reverse transformation

SA’s evolving government of national unity (GNU) has entered its inevitable turbulence. But behind the media headlines, the tactical jousting and the DA’s threats to walk away, lies a far more consequential battle — not just about coalition management, but about the future of SA’s economic path, developmental vision and class politics.

This is not simply about who sits in the cabinet or who controls which ministry. It is about whether coalitions in SA will entrench austerity politics or enable inclusive development. It is about whether fiscal policy becomes a tool for building national capability or a device for disciplining transformation.

And it is about the critical choice facing the ANC and its GNU partners — survival for its own sake, or survival with purpose.

The GNU reset is not a crisis, it’s a clarification.

When the ANC signalled its intention to press “Control-Alt-Delete” on aspects of the GNU, some analysts saw a crisis. In reality, this is a clarification that is long overdue.

The GNU was never about surrendering the developmental state to minoritarian veto power. It was never about handing over the levers of transformation to political parties that are hostile to the national democratic revolution’s historic mission of overcoming apartheid’s economic legacies.

As tensions rise with the DA, the deeper issue is that its economic approach increasingly looks less like partnership and more like obstruction — opposing public sector wage agreements, stalling on transformation targets and hardening positions on fiscal retrenchment.

What the ANC is saying is simple: GNU participation is not a licence to reverse or delay transformation.

VAT, austerity and the spectre of neoliberal discipline

The upcoming VAT increase, scheduled for May 1, has amplified public anxiety over the cost-of-living crisis. While the Treasury has argued for its fiscal necessity, it raises uncomfortable questions: who carries the burden of adjustment in this economy?

Fiscal hawks inside and outside government — including some of the DA’s traditional supporters in business — frame rising social spending, public-sector wages and basic income support as unsustainable. The danger is that this narrative dominates coalition economics, framing public investment as waste, and austerity as responsibility.

Bosa leader Mmusi Maimane’s recent proposal to cut R180bn from wastage without raising VAT reflects a popular sentiment — citizens want efficiency before taxation. But absent a growth-driving industrial strategy this easily descends into anti-state populism, not developmental pragmatism.

We must not lose sight of a fundamental truth: poverty is not reduced through budget cuts. It is reduced through decent work, social security and inclusive growth.

The real GNU choice — adjustment or transformation?

Globally, we have seen this movie before. Europe’s coalition governments of the 2010s became austerity machines. Latin America’s structural adjustment decades hollowed out developmental gains. Even within Africa, International Monetary Fund-guided fiscal retrenchment dismantled public health and education systems in the name of macro-stability.

SA must choose differently. The path forward cannot be austerity-led growth. It must be investment-led restructuring. This means localisation not as slogan, but as measurable output. It means rural development not as charity, but as a growth strategy. It means reimagining the township economy not as informal survival, but as the next industrial frontier.

Here, the ANC’s economic reconstruction and recovery plan, Operation Vulindlela, and the sector masterplans offer glimpses of this vision. But execution must accelerate. State capability must rise to the moment.

Africa’s moment is being written now — with or without us

Globally, the economic map is shifting. US President Donald Trump’s tariff wars, new US trade measures against Africa and the rising cost of doing business in China all signal that supply chains are being reconfigured. This is not bad news for Africa — it is an invitation to position ourselves not as perpetual raw material suppliers but as value-adding producers.

For SA this is existential. Agriculture must move beyond commodities to agro-processing. Manufacturing must be retooled for continental demand under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Services, digital platforms and green industrialisation must be the engines of a new developmental phase.

But this cannot happen if GNU politics descends into austerity management and permanent fiscal contraction. This requires courage — to defend social spending not as consumption but as investment. To protect industrial policy not as market distortion but as national strategy. To view skills development, energy security and infrastructure not as costs, but as the price of sovereignty.

Coalitions are inevitable — their purpose is a choice

The lesson of this GNU moment is clear: coalitions are not neutral. They reflect power, ideology and class interests. They can serve inclusive development, or become sites of obstruction.

The ANC’s position is not about rejecting co-operation. It is about reaffirming that co-operation must serve the national interest, not the narrow interests of those who fear transformation.

In the months ahead the GNU will need to navigate difficult terrain — cost-of-living pressures, global economic uncertainty and domestic impatience. But the worst possible mistake would be to surrender the developmental state to an austerity compact dressed up as fiscal prudence.

This is not just a battle for political survival. It is a battle for the developmental future of SA. And it is one the ANC — and indeed the country — cannot afford to lose.

• Manamela is an ANC and SACP central committee member,