Downriver there are two massive rocks on which the fragile Government of National Unity (GNU) faces being dashed to bits. The first is National Health Insurance (NHI). The second is cadre deployment, or “apparatchik insertion”, as I think of it.
These are both “blink” issues. Who is going to blink first and back down? And what are the consequences to the GNU and South Africa if neither does?
It’s the former, the NHI, that is the focus at the moment.
Following the hasty and unexpected signing of the NHI Bill, there was a sense that this was no more than pre-election opportunism on the part of President Cyril Ramaphosa – all part of the frantic last-minute efforts to ramp up voter turnout for the