By JD GLOBAL MEDIA
Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder has raised concerns about the way South Africa’s Government of National Unity has been functioning, saying political leaders representing the parties in the governing arrangement have not held the regular meetings that were agreed upon after their last formal gathering.
Mulder’s comments come as South Africa approaches the 4 November 2026 local government elections and as political parties campaign across the country.
The Freedom Front Plus is one of the 10 political parties that make up the Government of National Unity, which was established after the African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority following the 2024 national election.
The comments have brought renewed attention to how the GNU's political leadership structures are supposed to operate, how disagreements between participating parties are managed and whether the commitments made when the arrangement was established are being implemented.
Mulder says the political leaders last met in November 2025 and that they had agreed at that meeting that the leaders would meet monthly.
According to his account, those meetings have not taken place since then.
The Presidency's own record confirms that the 10 GNU party leaders met at the Cradle of Humankind in Gauteng in November 2025 and agreed that the political leaders' forum would meet regularly to provide strategic political direction to the GNU.
The difference between that commitment and Mulder's description of subsequent meetings is now at the centre of the latest political discussion.
How The Government Of National Unity Was Formed
The GNU was established after the 2024 general election produced a National Assembly in which no single political party held a majority.
The African National Congress remained the largest party but had to enter into an arrangement with other parties to form a government.
The resulting Government of National Unity initially brought together 10 political parties.
They include the ANC, Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party, Patriotic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, United Democratic Movement, Rise Mzansi, Al Jama-ah, Pan Africanist Congress and GOOD.
The arrangement was structured around a Statement of Intent that established broad areas of agreement and provided a framework for cooperation between the participating parties.
The GNU was designed to allow parties with different political positions to participate in government while maintaining their individual identities and policy differences.
That structure means political coordination is particularly important.
A government made up of several parties cannot rely solely on ordinary Cabinet processes if major political disagreements emerge between coalition partners.
For that reason, the GNU developed additional mechanisms intended to provide political consultation and resolve disputes.
November 2025 Leaders' Meeting
The most recent formal meeting of all 10 GNU party leaders identified in the Presidency's public record took place over two days in early November 2025.
The meeting brought together President Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy President Paul Mashatile and the leaders of the participating political parties.
At the conclusion of the retreat, the leaders described the GNU as united and strong.
They also acknowledged difficulties that had emerged during the government's first year, particularly around the 2025 budget process.
The parties agreed that the experience demonstrated the need for more effective consultation when government develops fiscal priorities and frameworks.
One of the important decisions from that meeting was that the forum of political leaders would meet regularly.
The purpose was to give strategic political direction to the work of the GNU.
The agreement was significant because the GNU involves parties with different ideological positions and different electoral constituencies.
Regular political discussions were therefore intended to provide a mechanism through which those differences could be addressed before they became wider government disputes.
Mulder Says The Meetings Did Not Continue
Mulder says that commitment was not maintained.
Speaking in an interview discussed in current reporting, the Freedom Front Plus leader said the political leaders last met in November 2025 despite an agreement to meet every month.
He said the absence of regular meetings has affected the political functioning of the GNU.
His criticism is directed not only at the lack of meetings but also at what he describes as the consequences for policy coordination.
Mulder argues that the GNU was intended to operate through political consultation, with party leaders discussing broad policy direction before government institutions implement decisions.
Without that process, he says, individual ministers and departments can effectively operate according to separate priorities.
The Freedom Front Plus leader has therefore questioned whether the current arrangement is operating in the manner originally envisaged.
His comments represent the position of one participating party rather than an independent assessment of the entire GNU.
The Presidency's Earlier Framework
The criticism can be considered against the institutional framework established by the Presidency.
In November 2025, the Presidency said the political leaders' forum would meet regularly.
Earlier that year, a GNU Clearing House Mechanism had also been established to help address policy disagreements between participating parties.
The Clearing House was chaired by Deputy President Paul Mashatile.
Its terms of reference were adopted in October 2025 after discussions involving representatives of several GNU parties.
The mechanism was designed as a recommending body rather than a final decision-making structure.
Where disagreements could not be resolved through the Clearing House, unresolved issues were intended to be referred to the Political Leaders Forum.
The structure therefore gave the political leaders' forum an important role in resolving issues that could not be settled at another level.
If the forum does not meet regularly, questions can arise about how that part of the GNU's dispute-resolution architecture operates in practice.
Government Says The GNU Has Continued To Function
Mulder's criticism should also be considered alongside statements made by government representatives about the functioning of the GNU.
In November 2025, Deputy President Mashatile told Parliament that the GNU was coherent and working while acknowledging that the 10-party arrangement had encountered political and ideological differences.
He said such disagreements were expected in a government involving 10 parties and pointed to the Statement of Intent and conflict-resolution mechanisms as tools for managing those differences.
The government's position was therefore that disagreement between parties did not necessarily mean that the GNU itself was dysfunctional.
That distinction remains important.
A multi-party government can experience disagreements while continuing to function through Cabinet, Parliament and established administrative structures.
The current dispute concerns a narrower question: whether the political leadership forum has met as regularly as the parties agreed and whether the absence of those meetings has affected political coordination.
Why The Issue Matters Before Local Elections
The latest criticism comes at a politically important time.
South Africa's local government elections are scheduled for 4 November 2026.
Political parties are campaigning nationally and presenting voters with different positions on municipal government, service delivery, economic development, public safety and local governance.
The GNU operates at national level, but the performance and relationships of its participating parties can influence their local election campaigns.
Several GNU parties are competing against each other in municipal elections even though their national representatives participate in the same national government.
That creates a complicated political environment.
Parties can cooperate in national government while competing directly for votes at municipal level.
They can also disagree on policy while continuing to participate in Cabinet.
The absence or presence of regular political consultation therefore has implications beyond the internal administration of the GNU.
It can influence how participating parties describe their relationship with one another during an election campaign.
Different Parties, Different Political Priorities
The GNU was never designed as a single political party.
Each participating organisation maintains its own leadership, policies, ideology and electoral programme.
The ANC remains the largest party in the arrangement, while the DA is the second-largest party in the National Assembly.
Other participating parties have considerably smaller parliamentary representations.
That difference in political weight can create competing interests within the governing arrangement.
A smaller party may want greater influence over policy decisions even when it has fewer parliamentary seats.
Larger parties, meanwhile, may have broader electoral mandates and greater representation in Cabinet and Parliament.
The political leaders' forum was intended to provide a place where those different interests could be discussed.
Regular meetings would also give party leaders an opportunity to communicate directly about emerging disagreements rather than allowing disputes to develop through public statements.
Foreign Policy Also Remains A Point Of Difference
Mulder has also raised concerns about the way South Africa's foreign policy is handled within the GNU.
He has argued that international relations should reflect the collective position of the government rather than the agenda of an individual political party.
This issue is particularly sensitive because foreign policy is constitutionally exercised through national government institutions, while GNU parties may have different positions on South Africa's relationships with other countries.
The Freedom Front Plus has taken positions on South Africa's relationship with the United States that differ from those expressed by other parties in government.
Those differences have been visible during recent disagreements between Pretoria and Washington.
The GNU therefore faces the challenge of maintaining a coherent government position while accommodating parties that retain distinct foreign-policy preferences.
Mulder's latest comments add the question of political consultation to that wider debate.
The Election Could Put Additional Pressure On The Arrangement
The November local government election could also change the political environment in which the GNU operates.
National coalition arrangements and municipal coalition arrangements are not identical.
Political parties that cooperate nationally may compete against each other locally, while parties outside the GNU can become potential coalition partners at municipal level.
The election could therefore produce new political negotiations in cities and municipalities across the country.
Mulder has argued that the election may contribute to changes in political alliances.
That is a political assessment by the Freedom Front Plus leader rather than a predetermined outcome.
The composition of municipal councils will only become clear after voters cast their ballots and results are declared.
What Happens Next
The immediate issue raised by Mulder is whether the GNU political leaders will resume regular consultations.
The original November 2025 agreement provided for regular meetings, while the GNU Clearing House framework created a mechanism for dealing with disagreements.
If the leaders' forum has not met since November, the parties could face questions about whether the existing framework needs to be reactivated or strengthened.
Such a process could become particularly relevant if policy disagreements increase during the election period.
The GNU parties will also need to manage the unusual situation of campaigning against one another while continuing to participate together in national government.
That requires political parties to maintain their individual identities without undermining the government's ability to make and implement decisions.
A Continuing Test For South Africa's Multi-Party Government
The latest disagreement illustrates one of the central challenges of South Africa's post-2024 political system.
The GNU brought together parties that had previously operated as political competitors and, in some cases, had sharply different positions on economic policy, governance, foreign affairs and social issues.
The arrangement therefore depends on mechanisms that allow disagreement without preventing government from functioning.
Regular political consultation is one part of that structure.
The Presidency's November 2025 statement established an expectation that party leaders would meet regularly and provide strategic direction.
Mulder now says that expectation has not been fulfilled since the last meeting in November 2025.
Government representatives have previously maintained that the GNU remains functional while acknowledging that disagreements between the participating parties exist.
Those two positions are not necessarily mutually exclusive: a multi-party government can continue operating while its political partners disagree about how the coalition should be managed.
The unresolved question is whether the absence of regular leaders' meetings represents a temporary gap or a deeper change in how the GNU operates.
As South Africa approaches the November local government elections, that question is likely to remain part of the broader political debate.
For voters, the issue provides another point on which to examine the parties' positions: not only what individual parties say about government policy, but also how the participating parties intend to cooperate, resolve disagreements and maintain accountability within a multi-party governing arrangement.
The GNU's future structure will ultimately depend on decisions made by its participating parties, developments in Parliament and government, and the political landscape that emerges from the 2026 local government elections.
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