Beyond the GNU — how opposition parties must adapt to compromise and power

The African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) entered national government together after the 2024 election, following the ANC’s loss of its parliamentary majority. Their partnership was presented as a practical response to a changed electoral landscape. Yet the 2026 local government elections have exposed a difficult question about what happens when parties that once defined themselves against each other begin sharing power.Who, in such an arrangement, is responsible for the compromises? Who receives credit for what works? And what happens to the parties that built their identities around opposing the very people with whom they now govern?The Economic Freedom Fighters’ electoral decline has brought this tension into sharp focus. On 7 November, EFF leader Julius Malema argued that the ANC’s decision to govern alongside the DA had helped make the DA a more acceptable electoral choice for voters who might previously have supported the EFF.His explanation is politically self-interested, as any party leader’s account of an electoral setback is bound to be, and should be examined carefully. It is not proof that the Government of National Unity caused the EFF’s losses. But it raises a question that reaches beyond the EFF: can political cooperation at the top change the meaning of opposition at the ballot box?The numbers make the question worth considering. The EFF received 6.22% of the national vote in the 2026 local government elections, down from 10.31% in 2021, losing more than 612,000 votes, according to Malema’s account of the results reported by Daily Maverick and the Mail & Guardian. The ANC, meanwhile, garnered 30.76% of the national vote, while the DA received about 24.64%.These figures describe a changing political landscape. They do not, by themselves, explain why individual voters changed their choices. But they make it harder to assume that South Africans understand political parties through the old distinctions alone.When opposition gets a new meaning For years, the ANC and DA offered voters sharply contrasting political identities. Their differences involved more than policies: they were also about history, ideology, race, economic priorities and competing accounts of what South Africa should become.The EFF positioned itself as a more radical alternative, particularly on land redistribution, economic transformation and the limitations of the post-apartheid economic settlement.These distinctions have never been perfectly consistent, and political parties have always negotiated with rivals when circumstances required it. Nevertheless, political identity depends partly on the differences parties persuade voters to recognise.The Government of National Unity complicates those distinctions. If the ANC can govern alongside the DA nationally, what does it mean when the ANC warns voters against supporting the DA locally? If the two parties can share executive responsibility, how convincing is the argument that they represent entirely incompatible political futures?This is not necessarily an argument against coalition government. Parties can disagree profoundly and still cooperate where the public interest requires it. Nor should political parties be expected to preserve hostility simply because it helps them campaign.The difficulty is that cooperation changes the political choices available to voters. A party that enters government must explain not only what it has conceded, but also what it has gained and what it intends to achieve through the arrangement.Its former opponents face a different problem. They must decide whether to continue presenting the governing parties as fundamentally different from one another or to acknowledge that their willingness to share power has narrowed at least some of the distinctions they previously emphasised.The EFF now faces this problem in a particularly visible form. Malema’s argument suggests that the ANC’s partnership with the DA has weakened the political logic of choosing the EFF as an alternative to both. Whether that explanation accounts for a significant proportion of the EFF’s losses remains to be established.Other explanations, including local performance, voter dissatisfaction, campaign effectiveness and competition from other parties, also require close examination.But there is a deeper question here: when parties become more pragmatic about power, must voters become more pragmatic about political identity too?Cooperation on whose terms?It would be a mistake to conclude that coalition politics is inherently at odds with what South Africans want.An Ipsos survey published on 30 October found that 65% of respondents supported the idea that different parties should work together at municipal level. The same survey reported that 47% of eligible voters said no political party represented their views.Those findings deserve to be considered together.The first suggests that cooperation between parties is acceptable to many voters. The second points to a much more troubling problem: a substantial proportion of eligible voters do not see themselves represented by the available political choices.Neither figure tells us exactly how people voted or whether they support the ANC–DA partnership specifically. The survey was conducted before the election, and stated preferences are not the same as behaviour at the ballot box.Still, the findings challenge the idea that South African politics can be understood simply as a contest between parties with fixed constituencies and clearly separated ideological positions.Voters may want parties to cooperate without wanting them to become indistinguishable. They may accept compromise while expecting parties to remain honest about the differences that matter. They may support a coalition because they believe it is necessary, not because they have abandoned their political convictions.The distinction is important. Cooperation is a governing arrangement; representation is a relationship between citizens and the people who claim to speak for them.A coalition may successfully negotiate a majority without resolving the question of whether its supporters feel heard. Conversely, a party may retain a strong ideological identity while failing to persuade voters that it can translate its principles into improvements in their lives.The test is not whether parties can sit around the same table. It is whether they can explain to voters what that arrangement is for, what compromises it requires and how the public will judge its performance.A familiar problemMalema’s explanation also raises a familiar problem in party politics: the temptation to understand electoral decline primarily through the actions of competitors.If the ANC’s cooperation with the DA helped the latter become more acceptable to some voters, the ANC cannot avoid questions about the political consequences of its own decisions. But the EFF must also examine its own record, message and ability to persuade voters that its programme offers a credible alternative.The same standard should apply to every party.A vote for one party does not automatically constitute an endorsement of every position that party holds. Nor does a decline in support necessarily mean voters have embraced the ideology of the party that gained ground. Some may be expressing dissatisfaction with their previous choice; others may be responding to local concerns or making strategic decisions about which party is best placed to govern.Without further evidence, it would be irresponsible to assign a single motive to millions of voters.Yet this is precisely why the results should prompt more serious reflection within political organisations. If voters are changing their choices, parties need to understand what those choices mean rather than simply identify which competitor benefited.For the ANC, the question is whether the Government of National Unity has made its political compromises intelligible to its own supporters. For the DA, it is whether participation in national government can be converted into a credible record of delivery without erasing the distinct commitments on which it campaigns. For the EFF, it is whether a politics built around opposition can offer voters a persuasive account of what it would do with greater governing responsibility.These are different questions, but they share a common concern: political parties cannot assume that voters will interpret their actions in the way their leaders intend.Not a substitute for political claritySouth Africa’s changing electoral landscape may require more coalition governments and greater cooperation across party lines. That is not necessarily a democratic failure. It can reflect a more competitive political environment in which no single organisation can claim an unrestricted mandate.But coalitions also make it more difficult for parties to rely on familiar political narratives. When former opponents share power, voters are entitled to ask what remains different between them, what they have agreed to pursue together and where their disagreements still matter.The answers cannot be reduced to whether a party has secured a ministry, a mayoralty or a place in a governing agreement.The deeper issue is whether political cooperation strengthens the relationship between voters and their representatives or merely changes the arrangements through which political power is exercised.If voters want cooperation but remain unconvinced that any party represents them, then the challenge facing South African politics is not simply to form stable coalitions. It is to make those coalitions meaningful to the people whose votes gave them their authority.Perhaps the most revealing question raised by the 2026 elections is not whether the ANC and DA can govern together, or whether the EFF can recover its lost support. It is whether South Africa’s political parties can adapt to a country in which cooperation is increasingly necessary, but political trust cannot be assumed.Former enemies can become governing partners. The harder task is explaining to voters why that partnership deserves their confidence and what they should do when it does. DM