{"id":4651,"date":"2025-12-24T11:27:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/?p=4651"},"modified":"2025-12-24T11:27:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:27:59","slug":"strange-bedfellows-anc-da-parliamentary-discourse-in-the-gnu-a-corpus-assisted-discourse-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/12\/24\/strange-bedfellows-anc-da-parliamentary-discourse-in-the-gnu-a-corpus-assisted-discourse-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Strange bedfellows: ANC-DA Parliamentary discourse in the GNU – A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researcher<\/strong>: Maxwell Milella, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Supervisor<\/strong>: Dr Rod Alence and Dr Retha Langa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg<\/p>

young democracy. After 30 years of unchallenged political dominance, the African National Congress (ANC) lost the parliamentary majority that it had held since South Africa\u2019s first truly free and democratic election in 1994. In response to this, the ANC and 9 other parties from across South Africa\u2019s political landscape came together to form a grand coalition government, a Government of National Unity (GNU).<\/p>

The GNU is (at time of writing) dominated by two parties: the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA), historically the governing party and primary opposition since 1994 respectively. With a shared history of continuous enmity, relations between these parties have typically been cool, characterised by finger-pointing and antagonism. However, 2024\u2019s coalition moment fundamentally altered the dynamic
between these parties, and their cooperation is essential for the effectiveness and longevity of the GNU.
Understanding the state of ANC-DA relations is crucial to understanding the dynamics of the GNU and assessing its trajectory. Indeed, tensions remain high between the ANC and DA, and have come to a boiling point numerous times in the GNU\u2019s short lifespan so far. In particular, three policy issues have rocked the GNU, primarily through ANC-DA conflict: the National Health Insurance Act (NHI), the Basic
Education Laws Amendment Act (BELA) and the Expropriation Act. These policy issues, key coalition friction points, were the centre of this study\u2019s analysis of ANC-DA friction in the GNU era, and its implications for the GNU overall. Specifically, through an analysis of parliamentary debate regarding these issues, this study sought to answer the following research questions:<\/p>

To what may these patterns be attributed? (e.g. fundamental party ideology,
alleged issues of feasibility, etc.). Are there any notable patterns in the ANC and DA\u2019s discourse related to the
NHI, the BELA and the Expropriation Acts? How do they each frame these
issues? What do these patterns reveal about the parties employing them?<\/p>

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>

 <\/p>

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researcher: Maxwell Milella, University of the Witwatersrand, JohannesburgSupervisor: Dr Rod Alence and Dr Retha Langa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg young democracy. After 30 years of unchallenged political dominance, the African National Congress (ANC) lost the parliamentary majority that it had held since South Africa\u2019s first truly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capstone-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4653,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions\/4653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}