- DA rejects budget, joins EFF and MK in fierce GNU showdown.
- Steenhuisen says Ramaphosa treats the DA like it’s a junior partner.
The government of national unity (GNU) is in intensive care and the DA must now choose whether to fight back or fold.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana says the GNU’s condition is “critical”. That’s no surprise after the DA and other opposition parties nearly staged a walkout during his budget speech.
The DA is furious that none of its budget proposals were taken seriously.
Now it’s openly refusing to back the budget — aligning itself with the EFF, MK party and other anti-ANC voices.
It’s a dramatic escalation in the GNU crisis.
The ANC needs 51% to pass the budget. But even its old allies are backing away. EFF leader Julius Malema is actively campaigning against it.
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula says the DA’s problem isn’t VAT or spending cuts — it’s that the party wants to stop transformation. But that’s just spin.
What’s really happening is that the DA feels bullied and ignored. And they’ve had enough.
DA leader John Steenhuisen has been under pressure for months. He says the party didn’t join the GNU to help push ANC’s failed policies.
A month ago, he called for a reset. Ramaphosa didn’t even blink. Instead, he pushed ahead and signed the controversial Expropriation Bill into law without a word to his coalition partners.
The president acts like the other nine parties in the GNU are passengers on an ANC bus. But the truth is, the ANC would be nowhere near power without them.
For 30 years, the ANC has co-opted smaller parties. But back then, it held a clear majority. Not this time.
Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Themba Godi, Patricia de Lille — they were happy to serve under the ANC banner. But this is supposed to be a new era.
The ANC no longer has a mandate to govern alone. And it should stop acting like it does.
That’s Steenhuisen’s point: “I am not saying we are about to walk out of the coalition. I make an honest, heartfelt, and conscientious appeal to the president, who got elected with votes from my party in the National Assembly, and he would not have been elected had the DA not made our votes available to him to please listen to us, take us into confidence and allow us to play our role.”
DA voters — including millions of black South Africans — expect the party to stand its ground.
Walking out now would betray them. But staying quiet and playing ANC cheerleader would be just as bad.
The DA must stay in the GNU, not to make peace but to fight harder.
Pictured above: DA leader John Steenhuisen.
Image source: File
