Government of National Unity and persistence of the old order

THE Government of National Unity (GNU) has now settled into the political landscape and is no longer an experiment but a lived reality. Its existence invites a deeper reflection on what it reveals about the state of our democracy and the enduring instinct for survival. Far from signalling a rupture, the ANC's participation in the GNU may represent a familiar trend in our political history, one in which power yields just enough to preserve itself.

- PROF JOSEPH SEKHAMPU

What began as an act of accommodation has become a study in continuity and shows how institutions adapt to new conditions without transforming their essence. The question that remains is whether the GNU serves as a bridge to renewal or as a careful continuation of the same political logic that has long defined the South African reality.

The ANC has never been a conventional party. It is a broad ecosystem of legitimacy and influence that binds the state, society, and liberation memory together into a single governing identity. Its authority has always depended as much on narrative as on numbers, and rests on the belief that it embodies the moral centre of the nation. The GNU does not dismantle that claim; it rearticulates it in new form.

Political theorists describe this as adaptive hegemony. When a dominant movement facing erosion of its base preserves influence not through control but through accommodation. In this sense, the ANC's embrace of the GNU is not a reluctant surrender but a structural adaptation. It has accepted that in a post-majority democracy, power must be shared in appearance but maintained in effect.