When the government of national unity took office, South Africans were promised delivery: political stability, economic reform and a new direction after the 2024 elections. More than two years later, the practical question is whether that delivery has materialised. It has not, at least not visibly. Unemployment stands at 33.6%, leaving 8.5-million people without jobs, and the economy contracted by 0.2% in the second quarter of 2026. On the ground, three women are killed by intimate partners every day, while the Madlanga commission investigates allegations of criminality and political interference in the criminal justice system. This is the operational reality under a government that promised stability and recovery but has yet to demonstrate much progress.
The contrast with 2024 is stark. At the time, South Africans were warned about the prospect of an ANC, MK party and EFF coalition, described as a “doomsday coalition” threatening economic stability, investor confidence and the future of democracy. The GNU was presented as the alternative. Today, MK and the EFF sit in opposition while the GNU parties govern, and it is worth asking whether we got the wrong doomsday coalition after all.
For an administration judged on delivery, the deeper problem lies in implementation capacity. A coalition does not need to agree on everything, but it needs to agree on enough to govern effectively. Without a common programme, the GNU risks becoming little more than an arrangement through which parties share power while remaining divided on the country’s direction.
The issue is not simply disagreement among coalition partners, which coalitions are supposed to accommodate. The issue is that the GNU has struggled to convert those differences into a coherent governing programme. What does it stand for? What is its shared policy agenda? Where does it want South Africa to be in five years, and how will it get there? These questions should have clear answers. Instead, the parties often appear to operate in silos, defending their own political interests and ministerial portfolios rather than working towards a common national vision.
The evidence lies in the disputes that keep surfacing over the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, the Expropriation Act, the National Health Insurance Act and almost any foreign policy question, from the approach to the US to support for Palestine. These are fundamental matters of education, property rights, healthcare and South Africa’s place in the world. They are not minor frictions that can be brushed aside as the inevitable texture of coalition government.
Holding a government to account on its record is a standard South Africans have applied unevenly. Imagine if MK and the EFF were in government under these circumstances. Would the political response be as restrained? Would there be the same patience with a government struggling to deliver growth, create jobs and address corruption? Or would these failures be framed as proof that the coalition was taking the country to the brink? The double standard is difficult to ignore. The GNU cannot claim credit for stability while expecting to escape scrutiny of its performance.
It is fair to acknowledge context. The GNU inherited many of its problems, and it cannot reasonably be expected to undo decades of structural failures overnight. But it can be expected to show progress, articulate priorities and take responsibility for its record. Political stability is not an achievement in itself if it does not translate into better outcomes for the public. Keeping a government together is not the same as governing well.
The irony is that the ANC, MK and EFF were judged in 2024 on what their hypothetical coalition might have done. The GNU must be judged on what its actual coalition has done. One combination was condemned for risks it supposedly posed; the other should not be shielded from criticism simply because it was presented as the responsible alternative. There is no guarantee that an ANC-MK-EFF government would have performed any better, but that is beside the point. The same standards of accountability must apply regardless of which parties occupy the cabinet.
South Africa does not need a government in which every party agrees on everything. It needs one that can make decisions, implement policy and deliver results. The GNU promised a new direction, and it now has to explain what that direction is. If its parties cannot agree on the country’s most pressing policy questions, and if their co-operation produces no clear collective vision, the question becomes what exactly South Africans are being asked to support.
In 2024, the country was warned about a doomsday coalition that never materialised. The GNU is the government South Africans got instead. The time has come to judge it not by the coalition it prevented, but by the state of the country it is actually governing.
Tara Roos is Business Day parliamentary reporter.