South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is doing largely as he pleases despite his party having lost its parliamentary majority in last year\u2019s elections, raising the ire of other members of the nation\u2019s ruling coalition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the May vote, Ramaphosa has approved legislation that will make it easier for the state to expropriate land, signed off on a law granting the government increased sway over schools policy, and signalled he would press ahead with a yet-to-be-costed national health insurance plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The business-friendly Democratic Alliance, which joined the so-called government of national unity to ensure Ramaphosa\u2019s African National Congress didn\u2019t team up populist rivals, says it wasn\u2019t adequately consulted over the contentious policies, violating the terms of their cooperation agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the DA has called a formal dispute, it has stopped short of threatening to withdraw from the 10-party coalition\u2014a move that would cast the country into political turmoil and spook investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf the DA had to pull out of the GNU, the rand would probably crash within seconds, and the DA doesn\u2019t want to take that to its backers,\u201d said Susan Booysen, a politics professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. \u201cThe DA has always claimed to be a rules-based party, and so they are easily outmanoeuvred, especially by the ANC, which believes it has the right to govern.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rising tension weighed on local markets on Monday. The rand slumped as much as 1.6%, the most in two months and leading emerging-market declines against the dollar, while the yield on benchmark 2035 government bonds jumped seven basis points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnything that threatens the promising structural narrative in South Africa is not good news,\u201d said Henrik Gullberg, a macro strategist at Coex Partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ANC led the fight against White-minority rule and dominated politics for the first three decades after it ended, but its support slipped to 40% amid public anger over widespread graft, poverty and unemployment. The DA garnered 22% of the vote, and a populist new party founded by former President Jacob Zuma 15%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ramaphosa, ignoring the concerns of his coalition partners, said over the weekend his party would forge ahead with implementing its agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ANC has an obligation to implement policies and decisions that advance the interests of the people \u201cbe they related to education, be they related to health, be they related to the issue of land,\u201d he told an ANC meeting in Johannesburg. \u201cThese will be taken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Steenhuisen, the DA\u2019s leader and one of six of the party\u2019s members who serve in Ramaphosa\u2019s cabinet, said it \u201cwas fanciful and not based on the reality of how government works\u201d for Ramaphosa to expect the new administration to continue where the previous one left off, because the ANC no longer governs on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t an ultimatum,\u201d he told reporters in Cape Town on Sunday. \u201cPartners don\u2019t give each other ultimatums. What it is, is a mature call for a reset of the relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the DA\u2019s complaints is that the new Expropriation Act is unconstitutional and will undermine property rights because it provides for the government to take land without paying for it in specific instances if it is \u201cjust and equitable\u201d to do so in the public interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also sees the new education bill eroding the rights of school governing bodies and Afrikaans language speakers and the new health insurance plan negatively affecting patients\u2019 rights to health care of their choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the ruling coalition\u2019s commitment to making economic growth and job creation its top priorities has boosted business sentiment, there are internal divisions within both the ANC and the DA over its composition, said Daniel Silke, the director of Cape Town-based Political Futures Consultancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The DA \u201chasn\u2019t been able to exert the influence that it would like to have,\u201d but needs to placate its backers and donors, he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that politically the DA is desperate to be in the GNU, but rather, that the South African business community, in particular, want the GNU to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Economists and analysts say president Cyril Ramaphosa is putting South Africa’s ‘good news’ story to flame by doing as he pleases and in spite of the GNU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":768339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-808926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":808927,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808926\/revisions\/808927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}