President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to deliver the Opening of Parliament Address at 7pm on Thursday. File picture: Supplied / GCIS
By Saawmiet Moos
Cabinet ministers and MPs descended on Cape Town Thursday for the opening of the parliament when President Cyril Ramaphosa will lay out plans for South Africa under its new coalition government.
Ramaphosa, 71, is to address a joint sitting of the two Houses at 7pm after a grand ceremony including a display of military pageantry and a 21-gun salute.
His long-dominant ANC was forced into an uneasy coalition with 10 other parties after May's elections, having lost its absolute parliamentary majority for the first time since democracy in 1994.
Damaged by graft scandals and a poor economic record, the party that led the fight against apartheid won only 40% of the votes. That result reflected deepening disillusionment with unemployment at a record 33% and poverty and crime rates high.
"This (address) is truly historic as it is taking place under unique, complex, and testing political conditions," parliament speaker Thoko Didiza told journalists Wednesday.
In striking the unprecedented power-sharing deal, the ANC aligned itself with the centre-right, a move some analysts said would reassure investors.
But the deal has been condemned by the vocal anti-capitalist opposition alliance.
The coalition government will face vociferous opposition from the leftist uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) parties. They have banded with three other smaller groups in an anti-capitalist alliance that has 102 seats in the 400-seat parliament.
Opposition alliance leaders told reporters Thursday their priorities included the expropriation of land owned by white South Africans for redistribution and the nationalisation of the national bank and mines.
Impeached judge John Hlophe, an MK official who is leader of the opposition in parliament, denounced the ruling coalition. It was, he said, intended to "preserve the current power of white monopoly capital in the economy, give advantage to white privilege".
The ANC has retained 20 cabinet positions in the new government, including the key portfolios of foreign affairs, finance, defence, justice and police.
Its largest coalition partner — long-time critic the pro-market Democratic Alliance (DA) — has six portfolios, including agriculture, public works and communication.
Six other ministries were distributed among the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party, anti-immigration Patriotic Alliance, the right-wing Afrikaans party Freedom-Front Plus and other smaller parties.
Although the cabinet held its first meeting over the weekend in a cordial atmosphere, observers say trouble might lay ahead from within and outside the new coalition.
"There is a momentum of goodwill that seems to have been built up in the first few weeks of the government of national unity," analyst Daniel Silke told AFP.
"The question is whether this momentum is sustainable," he added.
"It's one thing to create the new government... and dish out all the portfolios. It's quite another thing to find consensus in policy and in execution of policy."
From foreign policy to a national health reform dear to the left-leaning ANC but loathed by the DA, there is much the coalition partners disagree on.
Ramaphosa is likely to focus his address on uncontroversial policies such as a planned reform to professionalise the corruption-afflicted public service, said William Gumede, a governance professor at the University of the Witwatersrand.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said Wednesday Ramaphosa was expected to outline a "reform agenda", which "in many cases, is aligned with DA policy when it comes to unlocking investment and economic growth and building a capable state".
Former president Jacob Zuma, although he leads the opposition MK, has been barred from holding a seat in parliament because of a contempt of court conviction. He nevertheless retains much political clout despite a series of scandals.
Zuma's party could prove a thorn in the side of the ANC, from which it drew many disillusioned cadres who "know where the skeletons are buried", Gumede said.
AFP