South Africa has seen a seismic political shift, following the decision of the ANC and DA to form a coalition government.
Many ANC supporters see the DA as a racist party trying to make sure that white people hang on to the economic privileges they built up during the discriminatory system of apartheid.
Now, the ANC has decided to enter into a coalition government with it – and has included the mainly black Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), partly to make the deal more palatable to its constituency.
The coalition is being called a Government of National Unity (GNU), suggesting that it symbolises reconciliation in a nation still scarred by the racist system of apartheid.
South Africa’s first black President Nelson Mandela formed a GNU after apartheid ended in 1994. He had no choice – it was part of the power-sharing agreement that the ANC negotiated with the now-defunct National Party (NP), led by South Africa’s last white ruler, FW de Klerk, and other parties.
It compelled Mandela to appoint De Klerk as one of his deputies, and to appoint NP members to ministerial posts.
But De Klerk led his party into walking out of the GNU about two years later after accusing Mandela and the ANC of pushing through decisions without consulting him.
The IFP – which was also part of that government – remained in it, building a solid relationship with the ANC after years of hostility and violence between its supporters.
After the NP quit the GNU, Mandela invited the DA – then known as the Democratic Party (DP) – to join the government to keep alive his efforts at promoting racial reconciliation between the black majority and white minority.
The party refused, fearing it will be co-opted by the ANC and preferring to sit on the opposition benches to hold the ANC accountable.
Almost 30 years later, the DA has finally joined the government, partly because it feared that if it stays in opposition, the ANC will enter into what it called a “doomsday coalition” with radical parties that advocate the nationalisation of white-owned land, mines and banks.