Driven by self-centred needs, ANC and DA won't find each other

POLITICS UNSPUN

- Stephen Grootes

On Friday, 4 July, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the DA's refusal to join the National Dialogue was the "worst form of hypocrisy".

Others in the ANC have said that if DA leader John Steenhuisen refuses to join the interministerial committee driving the process, it will be an act of defiance against the President.

This shows that although the DA's announcement that it would not join the dialogue was viewed initially as a weak response to the sacking of the party's deputy minister, Andrew Whitfield, it has hit home with Ramaphosa and the ANC.

It is more proof that, after the coalition has been in office for more than a year, personal relationships between the leaders of its two main parties have not improved.

Both the ANC and the DA can point to incidents for which they can blame the other. The DA could say it started when Ramaphosa signed controversial acts, including the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act and the Expropriation Act, into law. It can claim that this was deliberately provocative, designed to weaken it.