NATASHA MARRIAN: Behind Mapaila’s GNU nightmares

The SA Communist Party (SACP) stance on the government of national unity (GNU) is on brand. Some SACP leaders are ministers and deputy ministers in the GNU, which party general secretary Solly Mapaila has labelled a “sell-out” position and “betrayal of the SA people”. As such, very little about his critique makes sense, at least superficially.

A possible clue to the mystery is the timing: Mapaila’s GNU-induced sleepless nights began after the cabinet announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa in the heady aftermath of the historic May 29 election. It doesn’t take a thinker of the highest discipline immersed in the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels to see that party bosses are angry because they failed to get the cabinet posts they wanted or felt they deserved. 

The ANC had little choice in forming a government. A minority government — the SACP’s preference — would probably have resulted in perpetual motions of no confidence against Ramaphosa from Jacob Zuma’s MK party in parliament, endless negotiation over policy and legislative changes, and potential paralysis of the state itself.

Alternatively, MK and Julius Malema’s EFF could have corralled opportunity-hungry minor parties into a bloc to vote in podcast addict John Steenhuisen as president without his consent — aimed solely at removing Ramaphosa from the presidency, prompting a crisis in the ANC.

Stranger things have happened — one only has to consider the stance of the party of another GNU-hater, Irvin Jim, who described the ANC as the “spokesperson” for Helen Zille and the DA in its aftermath. Yet the sole councillor for Jim’s Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party’s in Theewaterskloof — one of only two seats it won nationally in the 2021 local election — propped up a DA-led coalition. The DA was subsequently unceremoniously overthrown by an ANC-Freedom Front Plus coalition, but the point stands.

Another option was an ANC coalition with MK and the EFF — the ghastliness of that possibility is self-evident, but a small addition is that the SACP itself warned the ANC against tying itself not just to the DA, but to MK. One possibility is that Mapaila was out on a limb airing personal views with which most of the party’s top leadership disagreed. This is unlikely.

His election as general secretary came with the blessing of his predecessor and would-be general secretary for life, Blade Nzimande, who continues to enjoy support in the party’s top leadership structure, the central committee. Former chair Gwede Mantashe, a vintage SACP leader, also holds considerable sway in the top echelons of the revolutionary party. 

Business Day understands that Nzimande wanted desperately to remain in his post as higher education minister; it seems there is unfinished business he wanted to attend to in that portfolio. News24’s Carol Paton has reported extensively on Nzimande’s own brand of state capture unfolding at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, which disperses billions in financing to struggling students. Instead, Ramaphosa appointed Nzimande as science, technology & innovation minister. He has been rather quiet in that post so far, as other ministers push to show their worth, with PR and social media campaigns in overdrive. 

Then there is everyone’s favourite tiger, Mantashe, the erstwhile mineral resources & energy minister, arguably the most powerful portfolio in the cabinet. He was returned to his portfolio only for it to be scaled back to cover only mining, while the meaty area — energy — has been shifted to electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. This irked the tiger, who complained that he may as well have been moved to agriculture — incidentally now occupied by Steenhuisen — several insiders confirmed. Mantashe kept the channels of communication open with Zuma’s MK during the negotiation phase after the results were declared — he was more sympathetic towards the party during that period. 

When former president Thabo Mbeki treated Nzimande like a “toddler”, openly ridiculing him over his critique of inflation targeting, according to former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, the SACP and the federation turned on him. When Zuma axed Nzimande from his plum position as higher education minister in 2018 he also rounded on the former convict-president, becoming one of his staunchest critics. The SACP, which has become a professional cabinet-post-seeking gigolo, has now turned on Ramaphosa, saying his ANC has been taken over by a “neoliberal faction”.

Yet while the GNU is far from perfect, it is SA’s best shot in the aftermath of the earth-shattering election. The SACP’s stance, while self-seeking and dangerous, is unlikely to become an outright threat to it, but it does highlight the pact’s vulnerability to factional whims. 

• Marrian is Business Day editor-at-large.