Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen said without the support of his party, the ANC does not have a majority in Parliament and there will be no Government of National Unity. Steenhuisen said this while addressing the Cape Town Press Council today, where he outlined the DA's position on GNU.
NO GNU WITHOUT THE DA
Steenhuisen said they have just 22% of the seats in Parliament and even if they had an outright majority, South Africa is in such a dire state that any government would need to focus its efforts on a small number of critical priorities. "I want to be very clear about something: with 22% of the vote, the DA cannot get everything our own way inside the government. Actually, it would be undemocratic if we did. So I want our supporters, old and new, to accept that. It's how democracy works. Having said that, we will not accept a situation in which we get none of our priorities implemented. That, too, is undemocratic. The fact is, we hold the balance of power in the GNU. Without the DA's support, the government does not have a majority in Parliament," he said.
WHY THE GNU
Though he praised GNU, Steenhuisen emphasised that the future of South Africans is far from secure. He said they are in the GNU because 30 years into democracy, South Africa is in deep crisis, and in the wake of the election, the country desperately needed a government that is able to chart a path forward. "We have normalised so much tragedy. But South Africa's situation is not normal. We have the highest unemployment rate in the world, outside of a war zone. For almost 10 years, our population has grown faster than our economy, which means South Africans have been getting poorer and poorer. As a consequence, millions of South Africans are trapped in poverty with no serious prospect of escaping it," he said. He added that the state coffers are running dry but the country cannot get further into debt as a proportion of GDP. "If we do, we will face economic catastrophe, sky-high borrowing costs, the defunding of basic services, collapsed infrastructure and all the grim effects these would have on the lives of our people. Meanwhile, 27 000 of our compatriots are murdered every year. Our kids can't read for meaning. People who could be saved die in our hospitals instead," he said.
