#TwoBits: Read the backstory of the GNU in Tony Leon’s new book

Say what you like about Tony Leon, he’s an extremely erudite politician. Not that most politicians aren’t masters at talking about themselves, but Leon at least offers readable insights into other politicians and situations.

Being There: Backstories from the Political Front is the sixth book by the former leader of the Democratic Alliance. While it discusses a wide-ranging set of topics, at its core is a blow-by-blow account of the 31 days of deliberations leading up to the formation of the government of national unity in 2024.

The 2024 national election was a landmark event, when the ANC crashed to barely 40 percent of the vote, brought about mainly by the uMkhonto weSizwe Party – Zuma’s revenge. President Ramaphosa had 30 days to put together a coalition government or go into the political wilderness.

What followed was a bunfight, negotiating teams hastily cobbled together, replete with clashing egos, confusion and much shadow boxing, or as they call it, gamesmanship.

I won’t spoil your read, but Leon offers some interesting insights. Reading between the lines, the DA was slightly outboxed by Ramaphosa in the sense that it thought it was in a fair fight. Queensberry rules and all that, as Leon might have been taught at Kearsney.

The DA wanted to be awarded nine seats, in keeping with the number of votes it had received. There was much haggling over the number of Cabinet posts based on – and this is critical – the size of the previous Cabinet.

Ramaphosa kept them guessing until the very last second and only revealed his hand after the DA had voted him in as president. What he did was increase the Cabinet by two posts for the ANC, then had four ministers in the Presidency report directly to him – thereby keeping considerable power to himself and, in effect, creating a parallel Cabinet. In addition, each DA minister was assigned an ANC deputy. Sneaky doesn’t begin to describe it.

Whatever the case, Leon reckons having the DA in government is better than being out of it. And the markets agree, so far. But the threat of MK is hovering on the edge of everybody’s worst nightmare. Only time will tell how the future plays out.

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