Nelson Mandela said, “A man who changes his principles based on who he is dealing with cannot lead a nation; that man cannot be a leader. On the 14th of June, the PAC was part of the media address by the progressive caucus; five days later, the PAC joined the Government of National Unity.
In a statement by the PAC’s spokesperson, Apa Pooe, the PAC said its National Executive Committee (NEC) convened and reached a historic resolution to form a party to the GNU.
Pooe adds that “the strategic decision is driven by our commitment to influence policy positions from within the government, ensuring that our superior logic and vision guide the nation towards progressive and equitable development.”.
However, PAC Deputy President Dr. Lunga Mantashe says, “I don’t belong in Mr. Nyhontso’s NEC that took the reactionary, openly opportunistic position to join the Government of National Unity.”
Mr. Lunga continues to cite that “I represent all those PAC members who are opposed to the GNU for ideological, strategic, and tactical reasons.”
The GNU has received a lot of backlash from political parties on the left and ordinary South African citizens. Dr. Lunga says “the GNU is an ANC strategy to avoid public perception that it wasn’t intending to work with the DA.”
He further adds that “the GNU has nothing to do with the features of 1994’s GNU, and that the 1994 GNU was a transitional arrangement; the question is, what is the ANC’s constructive GNU transitioning from and to?”
Political analyst Dr. Levy Ndou says “the participation in the government of national unity has been a challenge to many political parties, including the PAC; there was little time for consultation by different political parties because of the limited period for the formation of the government.”
Dr. Ndou adds that “the PAC should be able to sit down, find ways and means, and find each other on this matter because I don’t expect the PAC to split only because of the participation of the party in the Government of National Unity.”
President Ramaphosa appointed the PAC’s leader, Mzwanele Nyhontso, as minister of land reform and rural development. The president separated the ministry, which was known as agriculture, land reform, and rural development.
Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, Siphamandla Zondi, says, “The allocation of the PAC for the ministry of land reform and rural development is curious. The President might have calculated that the PAC has always talked about land for over 70 years; they make land their only message, and the determination about it speaks as if they have a better idea for dealing with the land, including implementing what has already been agreed to by the parliament process in the past.”
Professor Zondi adds, “Now the PAC will be hard-pressed to show their mantle and the ability to do that which they speak or forever hold their peace. The citizens will look at them and say, Show what you are able to do; if they aren’t able to deliver, then their talking in parliament about slow processes and insufficiency about lack of vision in this area will be null and void, because they would’ve had the opportunity in government to demonstrate.”
The professor cites that “this can be a set-up to discredit them, fully knowing that they’ve never been efficient in running their party. Now they must be efficient in running a ministry of different people who come from different ideological positions and a bureaucracy that knows how to slow things down and how to capture you. This is going to be a huge test for the president of PAC.”
The deputy president of PAC, Dr. Lunga Mantashe, says, “They pretend to give the PAC land, and they strip agriculture from the land; they are disintegrating the thinking about the land question; they are disparately dis-coordinating the comprehension address of the land question.”
