Either the ANC will relent and negotiate on the National Health Insurance, or it will not. That is the only question that needs an answer in the next few weeks.

Carol Paton | Can the DA blink again? GNU on the brink

DA leader John Steenhuisen (right) has been no match for president Cyril Ramaphosa’s charm and calm persuasion, writes Carol Paton. (Darren Stewart and Lulama Zenzile/Gallo Images/Die Burger)

As the GNU enters its seventh month the DA has blinked twice. But when it comes to the NHI, the DA cannot afford to yield, argues Carol Paton.

The government of national unity is on the brink.

What happens next is critical if the coalition is to survive. It is impossible to predict which way this will go.

The DA has blinked twice. It blinked after its first ultimatum in June when the ANC ignored the Statement of Intent (SOI) —the agreement they had both signed to govern the coalition—and allocated the DA only half the Cabinet posts to which it was entitled based on proportionality.

It blinked again last month when, after describing the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill as “a red line,” it acceded to it fully, with the Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube co-signing the promulgation.

And had there not already been a brewing crisis over the National Health Insurance (NHI), the DA might even have found another way to deal with its concerns on the Expropriation Act. If the Act is internally contradictory, as Minister of Public Works Dean Macpherson contends, it would not be hard to find a friendly non-government organisation to take it to the Constitutional Court.

The DA does not disagree with the key element that the Expropriation Act set out to make explicit: that in some circumstances of expropriation, nil compensation can be paid.

What the DA has a problem with is the internally contradictory way in which the Act says the amount of compensation will be determined. While in one section of it, the government can be compelled to approach a court in the event of a dispute, in another, the full burden of litigation is placed on the affected person.

In other words, was this about the Expropriation Act only, the DA may well have blinked again.

In addition to these incidents, in one of the key conflict-breaking mechanisms—a meeting between the leaders of the DA and ANC—Ramaphosa has easily had the upper hand. DA leader John Steenhuisen has been no match for Ramaphosa’s charm and calm persuasion.

So, the ANC cannot be blamed for thinking the DA will bend.

However, when it comes to the NHI – which underlines and sits in the background of the fuss over the Expropriation Act – the DA cannot afford to yield.

While it could sign up for some negotiated version of the NHI, it cannot sign up for one that includes phasing out private medical insurance. This would make its position as a political party untenable: its ability to “save SA” through the GNU would be redundant, and its ineffectiveness definitively demonstrated.

This is the real red line.

There will, of course, be fallout. The belief investors have placed in the GNU on grounds that it will accelerate reform will be shattered. The story that Ramaphosa has sold the world SA’s miracle partnership has been revived will be revealed to be empty.

On Wednesday, the GNU holds a Cabinet lekgotla in which it will sign off on the GNU’s programme of action, known as the Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP). As the plan stands now, it includes specific targets on the NHI related to phasing out private health insurance.

The GNU’s first attempt to adopt the MTDP resulted in an explosion over the NHI, and the plan was deferred to this week’s lekgotla. Since then, a meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee to discuss the NHI has ended in the same impasse, as Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has again been immovable.

In recent weeks, the DA has made further efforts to engage Ramaphosa on the NHI, which he has batted away, saying Motsoaledi will deal with them.

All of this led to what happened on Saturday when Steenhuisen declared a formal dispute, as provided for in the Statement of Intent.

So, how does the ANC view the new GNU crisis?

Mostly, as not a crisis at all.

It knows that the DA can only walk away once, and when it does, a great deal will be at stake, opening the way for the ANC to form a coalition with far less friendly forces.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula spelt all this out on Saturday when he said that the ANC would engage the DA but had no plans to compromise on its transformation programme.

“The GNU is not a melting pot, and the ANC will not change in its path to transform this country,” he said.

He also made it clear that the ANC believes, not entirely without justification, that the GNU will be a short-term thing because, come the next election, the MK Party will shrink, and the ANC will be comfortably back in the mid to high forties. This is borne out by current opinion polls, which show some recovery for the ANC.

What happens next?

The first thing to know is the Statement of Intent, which Steenhuisen has invoked, has never been respected by the ANC, which has never regarded it as binding. While the SOI says that deadlock-breaking mechanisms would now kick in, the Clearing House that has been established to do this is weak and still does not have terms of reference.

There is little to no chance of the Clearing House stepping in and solving the problem.

A showdown at Wednesday’s lekgotla is assured, but no one should expect that the DA will exit government immediately.

The DA does not want to be the party to leave the GNU, and the ANC, said Mbalula, will not kick anyone out. It could be several weeks or even months as it all plays out. Some in the DA have suggested that if the ANC won’t compromise on NHI then it will refuse to pass the budget in the National Assembly.

But how this helps the DA is hard to see. The ANC may be able to pass it without them. If not, they may be forced to reconfigure the GNU and the DA might win a little victory that it was the ANC that broke the coalition and it is not responsible. But it will be irrelevant and no one will care.

Either the ANC will relent and negotiate on the NHI, or it will not. That is the only question that needs an answer in the next few weeks.