By Ensie Ferreira.
Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen on Saturday lambasted President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to sign the Expropriation Bill into law and suggested it may prompt his party to reconsider its position in the governing coalition.
He told a media briefing in Cape Town he was formally declaring a dispute over the bill, before accusing the president and the ANC of disrespecting its coalition partners and threatening the stability of the so-called government of national unity formed seven months ago.
Steenhuisen said that stability rests on the relationship between the ANC and the DA, the two biggest parties in the 10-party coalition, yet Ramaphosa declined to meet with him to discuss the contentious National Health Insurance Act and did not have the courtesy of telling Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson that he planned to sign the Expropriation Bill.
Macpherson who is a DA deployee to Ramaphosa’s cabinet, took to social media on Friday to say that the policy of expropriation without compensation – a red line for his party – would not be implemented “under my watch”.
Steenhuisen said: “Unfortunately, the ANC in the GNU has taken to openly disrespecting partners and undermining the trust upon which any coalition government is built.”
He noted that a fortnight ago, at a rally marking the anniversary of the ANC, Ramaphosa told supporters that although the party lost its outright majority in the national elections in May last year, it was “still in charge”.
“Just today, President Ramaphosa opened the ANC lekgotla saying that the GNU exists to implement the NDR [national democratic revolution],” he added.
“Not only is such a statement immature, but it does not accord with either the letter or the spirit of the statement of intent.”
Steenhuisen was referring to the agreement to form a coalition the DA and ANC agreed minutes before Ramaphosa was elected president by the National Assembly.
It is not binding in law, and the parties have not taken the trouble since to negotiate a formal coalition contract.
Instead, they have set up a clearing house mechanism where the two biggest partners have repeatedly clashed over legislation, while foreign policy disputes have been fought largely through the media.
The Expropriation Bill is the fourth law to put the DA and ANC at loggerheads, after the NHI, the Basic Education Amendment Laws (Bela) Act and the SABC bill, which Communications Minister Solly Malatsi, also from the DA, sought to withdraw ahead of its second reading in parliament.
Steenhuisen said he wrote to Ramaphosa on Friday to “object in the strongest terms to the fact that he signed the Expropriation Act this week in contravention of a clear legal opinion, submitted by Minister Macpherson, that the act is unconstitutional”.
He further informed the president that he was invoking section 19 of the statement of intent, which states that decisions will be taken by sufficient consensus, which it defines as agreement among “parties to the GNU representing 60% of seats in the National Assembly”.
Negotiators arrived at this figure by tallying up the number of seats the ANC and the DA had won in the May elections.
“The only parties in the GNU that together represent 60% of seats in the GNU, are the ANC and the DA,” Steenhuisen stressed.
He went on to say that if the dispute over this bill cannot be resolved, the DA would reconsider its options.
It is the most ominous comment Steenhuisen has made to date about the future of the coalition.
“If we cannot fulfill this mandate inside the GNU, we will have to seriously consider our next steps,” he said.
“The DA will not, under any circumstances, be reduced to being mere spectators. I want the people of South Africa to know that the DA does not take this step lightly.
“The seriousness of this situation demands that we engage other parties in the GNU too, such as the IFP who have publicly come out against the Expropriation Act too.”
The Expropriation Bill outlines the conditions under which nil compensation can be declared as just and equitable; the process through which it can be conducted and the categories of land which can be expropriated.
Despite the DA’s vehement opposition to the Bela Act, Steenhuisen a few months ago stressed that the standoff with the ANC over that measure did not pose an existential threat to the coalition.
Saturday’s statement therefore marks a departure.
A compromise was reached on the Bela Act late last year, and a process of implementation via regulations agreed.