GNU

"You must understand your political competitor"

With South Africa being in a Government of National Unity (GNU), or essentially a coalition government, German Member of Parliament Carl-Julius Cronenberg from the Free Democratic Party (FDP) believes that much can be learnt from Germany.

Cronenberg visited South Africa for the first time last week, where he engaged with various stakeholders, including the German Embassy and Democratic Alliance (DA) Members of the South African Parliament. He spent a few days in Johannesburg, where coalitions are unstable, and a few days in the best-run metropolitan city in the country, Cape Town.

I had the pleasure of drinking coffee with Cronenberg and discussing a few important matters, especially on economic growth in South Africa. Considering that he is both a politician and businessman, with a great interest in capacitating and supporting small and medium enterprises, I engaged with him on what he thinks would work for the GNU in the country.

When asked about his thoughts on the GNU, he said, "The GNU is great because having one party rule for 30 years is bad. Regardless of it being the African National Congress (ANC), no party should rule for that long - it's bad."

According to Cronenberg, South Africa has an opportunity to reposition itself. "I think there is a real chance, a real opportunity for a win-win situation. Especially when the ANC accepts the importance of foreign investment and, therefore, social economy programs, labour policies, social policies, economic policies, and financial policies. I also think the participation of the DA may help to fight corruption successfully. This is very important."

Cronenberg believes this will build foreign trust and increase investor confidence in the country. He says infrastructure must be at the core of the GNU. "The GNU provides a good condition for building better infrastructure and securing energy supplies."

On coalitions and how to make them work, Cronenberg says he would love for the GNU to visit Germany to benchmark. "I would be happy if ANC leaders, DA leaders, and other leaders from the coalition or GNU came to Germany to learn how to live with a coalition."

"Because we have a long experience, and we've had ups and downs. I wonder if the DA should learn from the FDP, because at the moment they are so critical. But really, coalitions are not a bad thing."

What makes a coalition good is its representativeness of the population and ideas, says Cronenberg. "It's a good thing because you address a broad majority of citizens in your country. Most importantly, sometimes it's just political framing and communicating with the citizens. For me, it's a hard job to explain to workers that we need huge discipline in the budget debate. But on the other hand, our social democrat partners, I'm sure, would not be able to explain to small and medium-sized entrepreneurs why the minimum wage has to be lifted. And in a coalition, we don't like the idea of our partners, but we explain it to our target groups."

He says to ensure the stability of a coalition, you must make efforts to understand the political parties that you are working with. "It's a good thing to try to understand the perspective of the political competitor. It's not an enemy. He wants the same type of change for his country as you do. So, it's not an enemy, and it's a good thing to find a compromise at the end of the process."

Red lines too are important, he says. "Well, red lines are part of the game, of course. For example, in our party in this German coalition, red lines are no tax increases and no public debt beyond what the constitution allows. There are other red lines for our partners too, and we must respect each other. Not every coalition is good. However, it's important that coalitions are built around the political centre."

He says another core focus of the GNU must be to expand the middle class. "In South Africa, I think the middle class is too small. So do anything that helps to make this class bigger. It's not important to protect rich people's fortunes, but it's very important to get millions and millions of young people out of the lower class into middle-class jobs."