DA leader John Steenhuisen said on Thursday his party has been very clear that there was an outstanding issue of foreign policy coherence in the Government of National Unity (GNU).

Speaking to the Press Gallery Association, Steenhuisen said that when they went into the GNU negotiations, they had argued for sealed mandates.

“It was something firmly rejected by the ANC, and yet Dirco (Department of International Relations and Cooperation) appears to be run as a sealed mandate, where there’s very little input from others. 

“As a result of that, and in several Cabinet discussions, we’ve said we need to have, as we had with the economic lekgotla, a foreign policy lekgotla where we get consensus on what the national interest is,” he said.

Steenhuisen made the statement a day after Freedom Front Plus leader Corne Mulder said his party will formally request an urgent discussion of South African foreign policy with President Cyril Ramaphosa, and then reach out to and invite other parties in government to join the conversation.

Mulder said in a statement on Wednesday that under the ANC, foreign policy has taken on catastrophic proportions and could even undermine the GNU.

“It is high time to prioritise the country’s interests.”

He also said the ANC simply cannot be trusted to manage South Africa’s foreign policy on its own. “As a partner in the GNU, the Freedom Front Plus insists that all GNU partners should have a say in the decision,” Mulder said.

Steenhuisen said any party in the GNU can declare a dispute in terms of the rules.

“Why has he never brought it to the clearinghouse? Why has he not tabled it with the leaders’ meeting?” he asked.

There were mechanisms to do it, and Mulder is obviously oblivious to what was going on, he said.

“And it concerns me that someone who’s a leader of a party in the GNU is so ignorant of the processes that are already under way.”

Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa and International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola have committed to a lekgotla on foreign policy.

“I have already received a draft document on South Africa’s national interest, which will form the basis of discussions going forward, but where I do agree is that we need to move forward quickly now on this.”

According to Steenhuisen, the economic lekgotla was very good at ironing out some of those issues around the economic policy and economic direction. 

“We need this lekgotla now to take place as quickly as possible so we can get on the same page around that. It is important because I have a particular view that South Africa has made a number of blunders in the past 10 years that have jeopardised a lot of our relationships.”

He stated that if South Africa is going to be non-aligned, then it must be genuinely non-aligned.

“What does non-alignment really look like? It looks like the same policy India follows, where Modi is able to navigate the White House, but also able to navigate being part of BRICS without compromising his country’s interests,” he said.

Asked if the mindset of the ANC could be changed, Steenhuisen said there were people within the ANC who had different views and opinions, just as it was the case in the DA.

“I think it’s about coming together and finding what that consensus point about what non-alignment really means and what it looks like and how we express that non-alignment going forward.

“I think that South Africa’s best interest is to be genuinely non-aligned as we set out in the founding agreement of the GNU document that says there we commit to being non-aligned,” he added.

He also said South Africa needed to very quickly find a place within the shifting geopolitical space.

“That is going to give us the credibility to be able to navigate our trade, our alignments, and our relationships going forward. 

“It can’t happen in a vacuum, and it can’t happen based on past loyalties. It has to happen on honest discussions about what our national interest is, to get the consensus on that, and to use that then to actively drive foreign policy.”

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za

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