The decisive defeat of the Economic Freedom Fighters’s(EFF) motion of no confidence in National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza was more than routine parliamentary theatre.
The 282–101 vote showed that, despite its tensions, the government of national unity (GNU) can close ranks when institutions are at stake.
The GNU’s parties still clash over policy and power, but increasingly contain those differences instead of letting every dispute threaten government.
The vote mattered beyond Didiza. It showed the GNU can absorb disagreement without letting it derail reform.
Not all 282 MPs who opposed the motion belong to GNU parties – which makes the result more telling. Alongside the ANC, DA, IFP, Patriotic Alliance and Freedom Front Plus were ActionSA, Build One South Africa, Rise Mzansi, the PAC and Al Jama-ah – the parliamentary centre now extends beyond the formal government.
The EFF was backed by the MK party, the African Transformation Movement, United Africans Transformation, the ACDP and the National Coloured Congress – a substantial bloc, but one confined to about a quarter of the National Assembly.
The EFF’s motion accused Didiza of failing to oppose Ramaphosa’s interdict application to halt the Section 89 Phala Phala impeachment process, and of misleading Parliament about why. But DA chief whip Glynnis Breytenbach drew the line that mattered: criticising a decision is not the same as finding grounds to remove a speaker.
That is institutional maturity: judging whether the threshold for removal was met, not whether Didiza was perfect. It decided it wasn’t.
Two years ago, that would have counted as optimism.
The alternative was just too dangerous
When the GNU was formed after the ANC lost its majority in 2024, many expected it to be short-lived. The ANC and DA clashed early over national health insurance and expropriation; the VAT increase later nearly broke the coalition.
Yet the GNU survived: the VAT hike was scrapped, the political damage absorbed, and government continued. The partners have learned that compromise isn’t surrender, and disagreement needn’t mean divorce.
This matters to business and investors abroad, who never expected the ANC and DA to become ideological allies. They backed the GNU because the alternative – an ANC deal with MK and the EFF – was more dangerous: it could have threatened fiscal discipline and central bank independence. The GNU instead offered the National Treasury continuity and a shot at reforming electricity and freight rail.
It also ended the uncertainty of the ANC’s lost majority. Businesses can price policy risk; they struggle to price political chaos.
That doesn’t mean business is satisfied with Ramaphosa. The Financial Mail has reported growing impatience with the pace of implementation and his reluctance to confront entrenched interests. Reform remains too slow to show up in growth or jobs.
But business can be disappointed in Ramaphosa while staying invested in the GNU. It’s the coalition – not the president alone – that increasingly guarantees reform. The arrangement may prove more valuable than the man who built it.
Not only business interests at stake
The GNU’s stability also matters to rebuilding the state. The Madlanga Commission continues to expose how far criminal networks penetrated the police. The Zondo Commission has finished its work, and some recommendations are reshaping public-service appointments. Other inquiries are probing police interference and executive accountability – findings that will mean little unless the institutions enforcing them are protected.
A stable centre gives Parliament, the National Prosecuting Authority, the Special Investigating Unit and the courts room to do their work.
The GNU’s next task is protecting institutions whose independence will decide whether state capture returns: the NPA, police, Crime Intelligence, the Hawks, the State Security Agency, state-owned companies and the Auditor-General. It must also protect whistle-blowers, who still carry intolerable personal risk for exposing the theft of public money.
That’s why excluding MK and the EFF from power still matters. Both have a democratic right to organise and contest elections, but neither has shown it would strengthen the institutions recovery depends on. Keeping them out must happen through persuasion and performance, not a cartel; the GNU keeps legitimacy only by governing better and letting voters judge it freely.
The next great test comes after the November 4 municipal elections.
Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay may again produce hung councils. Extend the GNU’s national principles to these cities, and South Africa could swap unstable, transactional coalitions for broad agreements built around financial recovery and service delivery.
For business, functioning metros aren’t a secondary issue. Add Cape Town to that list: together, these six metros hold the country’s core economic infrastructure, and no national reform programme survives water outages and collapsing sewage systems.
The country needs the GNU to endure beyond the 2029 national election – not necessarily in its current form or under its current leaders, but as a governing principle in which no single party owns the state.
Stability isn’t an end in itself. It’s the platform from which reform and investment grow.
The Didiza vote showed the centre is holding. The task now is to turn that stability into functioning cities and rising investment. Managed well, the GNU stops being a stopgap after an inconclusive election – and becomes the foundation of South Africa’s democratic recovery.
Catch more viewpoints of Majova, political editor at Scrolla.Africa, a mobile-first news site covering breaking stories fast from communities across South Africa in English and isiZulu
