With South Africa at “boiling point” and running gun battles on the Cape Flats, negotiations for the country’s new Government of National Unity (GNU) took some dramatic turns this week as more parties (including the EFF and BOSA) entered into coalition talks with the African National Congress (ANC) while the Democratic Alliance (DA) teetered on the brink of going back to the opposition benches. In this interview with BizNews, United Independent Movement (UIM) President Neil de Beer speaks about the DA’s fight for the economic cluster and the portfolios that are critical to the movement of the basic economy, lifestyle, and stability of the country. He describes President Cyril Ramaphosa re-emerging as the “the Cyril of the CODESA negotiations…and putting down his iron rod”. De Beer also dissects the East-West factions inside the GNU and warns of a looming foreign policy battle. Meanwhile, he reminds the current president that there are factions inside the ANC, the government, the police, the army, and the intelligence services that remain loyal to former President Jacob Zuma.
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:03.154)
Is South Africa getting a government of national unity or a government of national and provincial disunity. We speak to Neil de Beer, the President of the United Independent Movement. Welcome, Neil.
Neil De Beer (00:18.254)
Have a very good day Chris and to all the great BizNews family. At this current moment I think we’ll take any of the two. We just want it done. I said to a guy the other day, he said to me, what ministries do you think they’re going to get. Ek sê: Al kry hulle Bosbou. Get it done. I don’t care. And I think we’re there, you know, but we pray for unity and not disunity.
Chris Steyn (00:43.858)
I know, Neil, if you were a voter and not a politician, would you have felt that you are getting a government you voted for or a government that has been picked for you by politicians?
Neil De Beer (00:58.829)
I think Chris on both sides, I think if we take, can we call it the two main characters of this play and it’s starting to become more and more a Shakespeare thriller, Macbeth. We have to look at the two characters and at this current moment, if you look at the ANC and the DA, I can tell you on both of those sides, voters that voted for the ANC and voters that voted for the DA unequivocally are not happy. Some of them are feeling absolutely sold out, but they are currently sitting back and say, okay, we are adamant DA, adamant ANC supporters, we’ll go with this, but if they fail, they are going to get the harshest reaction from those who at this current moment say, but this is not what we voted for. But patience must be given, and I think we need to take that leap of faith.
Chris Steyn (01:55.218)
Neil, last time we spoke, there were 10 parties in the so-called government of national unity. And as predicted by you in a private conversation earlier this week, BOSA entered into talks with the African National Congress and so did the Economic Freedom Fighters. What do you say?
Neil De Beer (02:12.779)
I think there’s a lot of people saying a lot of stuff. I get frequently asked because this has now become a weekly feature. People are interacting and saying, how do you get it right and how do you get it wrong? Well, firstly, you do your study, you tap into your intelligence, but then you look at what is predictable. I told you there is no way that a Mmusi Maimane can help himself by not getting into the fire. So while this carnival door is closing, a couple are trying to slip in. So by die afterdeur.
Neil De Beer (02:42.154)
It’s not unpredictable. We said there was a very weird calculator that was going up that was being updated as the week went, where you could see there was a formula of how much does the ANC require to get without the DA, to make 201. And in my calculation, they needed BOSA, they needed Mmusi Maimane’s two seats in National Assembly to get to 201.
But I then said, if they do do that, and that is their intention, they must be careful that the now DA compatriots, the IFP and the Freedom Front, that they don’t walk out. So there will always be this balance. But yes, I predicted it and he put out a press release, that’s now BOSA Mmusi, two days ago saying they’re talking.
But the one that is currently not just talking, but causing a fracas is, as usual, drum roll…the EFF. There they are. They went, they spoke. And one thing you must tell about them is they’re quite blatant in your face, like they’ve always been. And they said, we can become the alternative to the government of national unity’s current recipe. We’ll bake the same cake, but you must know without the DA and without the Freedom Front. So there they are.
And I don’t think they’re going to be the last people that are trying to slip in the last pieces… of this new South African cake.
Chris Steyn (04:16.05)
But if it ends up in a government where the African National Congress and the DA are the major parties. Do you think that the people on the DA side, the strategist, had envisaged it was going to end up like this, with all these other parties coming to the party?
Neil De Beer (04:37.544)
Chris, no, because you don’t know. Now, can I tell you, this is not my first rodeo. This total happening of the Government of National Unity talks, I have gone through two of them. One was I experienced some of CODESA and I experienced the whole MPC Multi-Party Charter journey.
Both of those…Can I call it highlight national debate were based on the same principle. In the Multi-Party Charter, the founding members, when we started, invited any party in this country that had the same vision, the same ideology, and the same understanding to join. We got a flurry of parties that wanted to join. And some of them did and some of them we rejected.
So this is the same thing. And by the way, I can only talk because I know how the DA, can I call it IFP, Freedom Front, I’ve worked with them for a year and a half, weekly. And that is the negotiations that will go on.
We don’t know who’s going to come in, but they must align. And this is the same format.
So what is also extra special, and here’s the thing, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Cyril of the CODESA negotiations, a week ago came out. There he is. He jumped up and there we now see the old negotiator coming in and putting down his iron rod. And we were waiting for that. I was waiting for not the President Cyril, not the Cyril we know, but the old negotiator that must come in and this is also not his first radio. So there we are, we saw it, it’s there and now you’ve got to sit down and say the extra parties that are coming in, the ones that are causing maybe a little bit of a shift, you can’t stop that and they are sitting and dealing with it as I know currently day by day.
Chris Steyn (06:56.466)
As things stand, this government of so-called national unity is now going to end up with strongly opposing factions. Those parties that support the West versus those parties that support the East. Surely there’s going to be a huge battle for foreign policy control.
Neil De Beer (07:14.116)
Yeah, I call it the battle of hills. You know, you have a war, but you have intricate battles in between. This is the first battle. This is the first hill that they need to climb and that is to sort out who’s getting cabinet and who’s not.
Now, Chris, here’s my finger in the wind. I think they are going to settle on six. I think they are going to get six ministries and six deputy ministries. I think they’re going to get the majority of, can I call it the economic cluster? So here’s my prediction. They’re going to focus on education. So they might get minister education of basic and higher. I think they’re going to go for electricity and energy. They’re going to want to get involved because that has a major economic bearing, loadshedding, getting rid of it. So the DA would want to get somewhere their fingers on the pie of energy and creation of electricity. They definitely hunting trade and industry. They definitely are going to look at infrastructure because if you look at infrastructure, education, finance, trade in industry, if you look at those kind of mechanics in the Lego block, they are critical to the movement of the basic economy, lifestyle and obviously stability of a country.
So my prediction is education, trade, no doubt don’t be surprised if they get bosbou, forestry, and they’re definitely going to look at the energy market and that will be the kind of economic cluster they’re fighting for.
There’s no way they would get justice because if you had to give today the Ministry of Justice to Helen Zille, we don’t have a parliament, they’ll have to dissolve it. That’s my opinion.
Now, here they sit. Not only are they going to have to get past these kinds of talking of the first hill, the second hill they’re going to have to climb is to align policies and whose policy actually puts forward. East or West policy? Palestine, Israel, Russia, Ukraine. They’re going to have to sit down and say BEE or no BEE. And that’s not just a West-East favour because we’ve in 30 years juggled this boat from president to president from West to East. One likes Russia, the other one prefers America. That’s it. So this government is now sitting with exactly the two opposites. One wants East, the other one wants West, and that’s going to have to crack down right through policy decisions economically and also policy. So that’s the second hill. And that hill will have to be conquered as soon as this one is done, hopefully in the next couple of days.
And Chris, just to add a caveat, we’re quite hard on ourselves when we think that we can fix a government in 11 days and present it. There are countries that take five months just to sort out a cabinet. But the reason it’s happening in this country, the reason why day 11 today is like boiling point, is this country is on its own level of boiling point. Ons is nou op daai tipiese scenario waar ons nou gatvol is. We are at that tipping point of saying, can we just get on with it? Can we get the rudder in place, put up the sails and get Ship South Africa in the sea? And I think that’s why it’s critical that this gets done.
Chris Steyn (10:53.906)
Well, Neil, while there’s this jockeying for positions and entry into this government, Cape Town has become a worse killing field than ever. How many people died in recent days? There’s a war on the Flats.
Neil De Beer (11:10.015)
Yeah. Yes, because there is. We can now paint this zebra any colour again that we want. This is coming back black and white. It is shocking the amount of gunfire, the amount of killing that has gone on in the past three days in the Western Cape. And you know, the thing that I always say is there’s a cliché and I’m part of it. I stay here. It is a stunning city.
Neil De Beer (11:39.902)
It is probably an emerald or a diamond of the world. But in the back of it, behind this facade, murder, mayhem and gang violence has overtaken and in my opinion, as I said to a commentator this morning, it’s out of control. It’s out of control because you can see the video footage coming on Twitter, on everywhere. It’s bursting.
Someone said to me, but Neil, what would you do about it? Wrong person to be honest to ask. Because if you wanted me to go sort out this problem, like I kind of did a couple of years ago, then you must know there’s only one way I would deal with this and that is thunder and lightning. Ek sal donnerweer afbring op hierdie kriminele.
There’s only one way to intervene and that is to intervene but with an almighty force. I would bring in the military, I would bring in the police, law enforcement, anybody that can carry a bulletproof, license for a gun, I would bring them in, I would put a force of 5,000 people into this situation and I would solidify it. I would take three months – and I would wipe them out.
Now, when you speak like that, people go, what about human rights? Luister nou vir my human rights se gat. When you go and you are about to shoot one another and you kill a child and you kill an innocent person, I will take away your human rights. Probably just lost 950,000 voters. I don’t care. There’s one way that you deal with a criminal, you deal with him.
Now, this is where I must tell you, we will have to sort out this government because the longer we take to appoint a Minister of Police, a Minister of Defence, a Minister of Justice, that is as long it’s going to take to see who they appoint sodat ons wragtig nou ’n lyn kan trek. Chris, we must pull a line in the sand with this and it’s going to take hard work, at times a cold heart.
Neil De Beer (14:04.794)
Maar on weet on met hulle te deel. I am sorry, It is not happening at the momement, and I am going do whatever I can, because remember I am on the outside now, to influence thein side, but our children cannot continue dying on the streets like this. Sorry you can see I am a bit…dit maak my warm…
Chris Steyn (14:26.482)
No, Neil, I’m with you. I mean, this is a historic problem. It goes back to the apartheid years when Cape Town was the crime capital of the world, even then, because of what was happening with the gangs. And I remember sitting with families many times on the Flats whose children had been killed in the crossfire. Here we are, so many years down the line. And now there are running battles in broad daylight while politicians are fighting for positions.
Neil De Beer (14:55.449)
Yeah, Chris, there’s a lot of excuses. You know, it’s not a gang problem, it’s not a crime problem, it’s a social problem. We need to look at the problem in the Cape Flats where the people were taken. Yes, they were taken and they were dumped. They were taken without a future. Yes, there’s major social disparities. I understand that. But that is a different way and a different department and a different part of government that must intervene.
But I am from that side of government where if you pick up a gun and you point it, you will die. There is just this absolute understanding that if we need to sort out social disparity, in other words, poverty, job creation, absolutely. And I hope we get a government that now for once and for all will start shutting up with clichés and getting involved to intervene in poverty.
But in the interim, it does not give you the bloody right to take up a gun, to take up drugs, to take up criminality and say, but this is justified. We as a South African Republic, coming now from Neil de Beer, we will never tolerate insurrection, revolution and the total collapse of justice law and order. I’m not that kind of person and I want us to know to speak about curbing crime, to speak about taking on crime is one thing, but to kick the door and to take that person to justice isn’t just about the arrest. It’s about the conviction. Conviction. So it’s easy to go kick down doors. Maar Vrydag kom die donner weer terug. They just release him. So we don’t just have a policing collapse. We have a justice collapse. And if we don’t get the two working like a perfect V8, we are never going to complete that circle. So we must have a strong Minister of Police wat nie hulle nonsens gaan vat nie, but a Justice Minister that understands justice, but will ensure it is free and fair, but it must be just. And I think today we don’t have the two and that’s why, sorry, I need these ministers to be announced so that we can get moving.
Chris Steyn (17:11.282)
Well, apart from the factional battles within the so-called government of national unity, I do not think anybody can underestimate the influence of former president Jacob Zuma and the hold his allies and his party may have on the security cluster.
Neil De Beer (17:29.462)
You know, we’ve got a military term, embedded. We are embedded with the enemy. We are embedded. You know the word embedded, it means, we’re not in the bedroom outside, we’re in the bed. Embedded means there are people within. Now Chris, there’s no doubt that there is a huge conclave, cell, grouping of people in the ANC – and not just in the ANC but in government that has Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma Msholozi as a person that they respect, and might I be saying something called serve still.
So you must make no mistake, Umkhonto we Sizwe, where I come from, is a closed nucleus of people. You can’t just evaporate it. You cannot just disappear the loyalty. It’s like going to our old SANDF soldiers that are also war veterans and you tell them they cannot coexist because the people from the 32 Battalion will remain, the people from the Parachute Battalion. It’s a code. There’s no difference to this.
So there are people that swear to MK. There are people that swear to Jacob Zuma.
Our problem, and I always tell people, is forget about the people in the ANC. I’m going to drop something quickly, may I? Just drop a pebble. When the Apartheid government surrendered, yes, they surrendered, the uniformed conclave, when the security cluster had to be amalgamated with the MK and with the ANC’s military wing, we had to have that scenario where the military, the police and the security cluster of this country had to be amalgamated.
Neil De Beer (19:36.882)
And as this amalgamation grew, and it’s 30 years later, I can tell you now that the majority of the people that are in control of the defense force of this country, I’m talking about the people that carry the sword, are MK. The majority of the leadership currently that are within the policing sword are MK. And the majority of people within the intelligence cluster are ex-MK because there was integration, Chris. MK got integrated into the forces.
So your problem does not just lie when you say, but it’s an ANC thing. And it’s a Jacob Zuma thing. No, it’s a territorial thing. It is a loyalty thing.
So your problem is going to be how will Cyril, who by the way, excuse me, Cyril does not come from there. Cyril is a unionist. He comes from the mine workers union. He’s not as far as I’m concerned…just because you wear bloody uniform doesn’t mean that you’re a soldier. It just means that you’ve got good fashion taste. So there are certain people that donned the bloody uniform and are they suddenly a soldier. Ag moenie nou nonsens praat nie, man. And you’ve seen some of them now go from uniform to gumboots in parliament. But listen to me quickly, there are soldiers and there are soldiers. Cyril was not a front combatant. He was never a person which could be put on the same level as Chris Hani. It’s not possible.
So he needs to understand that amongst him, within the police, within the army, within intelligence, he’s got people that will always remain loyal to MK and without a doubt have an affinity for Jacob Zuma. And that is another thing we’ve got to watch. Not to say that it’s going to have an impact, not to say that it’s going to throw the apple cart over. But I mean we were born at night, Chris, not bloody last night.
Chris Steyn (21:54.802)
We’ve seen a week of leaked letters and posturing statements, but what debates have been taking place behind the scenes? What are people saying that we do not see in the headlines?
Neil De Beer (22:10.927)
I think the word leaked is stupid, because I think the word leaked if you go look at the definition in any Oxford dictionary, it’s kind of something that came out that wasn’t supposed to. I don’t think they leaked. I think they’re just bloody given. In Afrikaans, die kraan lek. So in other words, it’s a fault. So you can turn the tap, but it’s still leaking. So it’s not on purpose. Rubbish. This is purpose. Someone inside gives the media it, because this has become a media game.
Now I’ve said this, the minute that you start negotiating an anti-nuptial with your wife in public, everybody wants to get something when the divorce comes. Jy het dit mos nou vir almal gaan loop en vertel. So I’m saying, this is not a leak, can we stop this? Can the Neil de Beer-BizNews weekly conclave, can we stop using the word leak because dit word nie geleak nie, dit word geblêrrie gee. And in my opinion, that has become the game that is played.
Because the minute, you know someone told me Chris and I don’t believe it, I don’t know, I’ve never practiced it, but they say there is a perfect crime. It’s the one that you do on your own. Because the minute that you do a crime plus one, it’s over. Hy gaan praat. So the minute that there’s a talk between me and the other person, it’s okay. But the minute that you take me and you out of it and we make it the nation, ooh now it’s a problem. And I’m telling you this was done purposefully. And they can deny it. I have no de facto evidence. Again, it just makes sense because it’s been leaked too much, too many times, too often. Ek bedoel een lek, okay, twee lekke, dit raak interesant, maar drie lekke…someone’s doing something wrong.
So, yeah, we’ve got to get to the point where no matter what they leaked and no matter what they gave, the end result must be government of national unity, cabinet ministers in place, deputy ministers in place, and something interesting, by the way, they went deeper in these discussions than just minister and deputy minister. They started talking about who will have the authority of DG and deputy DG. That never actually happened in any of the current inner ANC transfers where they said that Minister, Deputy Minister can change, but the executive, the DGs, the deputy DGs, etc. that they must also be scrutinized. This is the first time that it’s happening. The DA is asking for that.
And let me quickly tell you, not a bad move, because you don’t kill a tree by chopping off the branch, Chris. You kill a tree by removing the roots. And maybe, no matter what happens, this is what this country is now demanding. Haal hierdie gifboom, hierdie boom wat vrot is, take it out. Take it out completely and you the ANC, you are the people that know exactly where the roots are because what we are seeing is the trunk and the branch. No, no, no. You are mos with us now. So tell us where the roots are and you are going to have to help us dig out those roots. That’s Government of National Unity for you.
Chris Steyn (25:44.402)
Thank you. That was Neil De Beer, the President of United Independent Movement speaking to BizNews. And I am Chris Steyn. Thank you, Neil.
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