DA labels Gareth van Onselen embittered former party hack: iLIVE

16 May 2014 - 12:20 By Gavin Davis, DA Executive Director of Communications
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Gareth van Onselen. File photo.
Gareth van Onselen. File photo.
Image: Esa Alexander/ SUNDAY TIMES

In his article on the departure of Lindiwe Mazibuko, Gareth van Onselen asks why somebody would rather go back to university than lead the opposition in Parliament.

But what if the real choice was between returning to university and the prospect of losing the parliamentary leadership?

Predictably, Van Onselen doesn’t explore this particular possibility.

Lindiwe Mazibuko’s proximity to Gareth van Onselen is well known. It is highly unlikely that he would not have consulted her on his column before it was published. And, at the time of writing, she had not refuted his claims.

So let me take the opportunity to set the record straight.

All political parties have internal tensions. It was the case with the DA under Tony Leon, it remains the case under Helen Zille and it will be the same under the next leader of the party. As Van Onselen himself points out, it is the nature of the beast.

It is true that Lindiwe and Helen’s relationship did become strained towards the end. But not irretrievably so. And certainly not because of what Van Onselen describes as authoritarianism on Helen’s part.

When Lindiwe was elected parliamentary leader, she insisted on having her own, expanded staff complement.

She had her own platforms and carte blanche to position herself as the counterpart to the President of the Republic. Helen strongly encouraged this, and ensured she had every opportunity to build her profile.

Lindiwe was given ample space to lead the caucus as she saw fit, immediately reshuffling the shadow cabinet and making subsequent changes without consulting the party Leader, as is the convention. This generated strong resentment within the caucus.

If anything, Helen was criticised for being too ‘hands off’ in her dealings with the parliamentary management team. This was brought into sharp relief with the Employment Equity Bill debacle. The fact is that Lindiwe ignored advice on how to deal with the Bill which is how we ended up in the embarrassing situation that we did.

It is ironic that Van Onselen refers to my appointment as Communications Director at the DA as ‘cadre deployment’ when he himself had been deployed to that position prior to me.

Helen Zille had nothing to do with my appointment. I applied for the job when the position became vacant and I was interviewed by James Selfe and Jonathan Moakes.

Furthermore, when I was appointed, Athol Trollip was the parliamentary leader, not Lindiwe. It is therefore false to insinuate that I had been sent to Parliament to exert control over Lindiwe. I arrived in August and she was elected in October.

The first task I set myself was to repair the damage wrought by Van Onselen — my predecessor — in his internal war against Athol Trollip. This had started when Ryan Coetzee, Van Onselen’s mentor, lost the election for parliamentary leader against Trollip.

That particular battle had caused deep divisions in the caucus and created a culture of mistrust between MPs and staff. My next job was to professionalise communication in Parliament and align it with the rest of the party. This entailed a restructuring process and filling the numerous vacancies that Van Onselen had simply not bothered to fill.

Like Van Onselen before me, I was empowered to sign off all party communication (including parliament). This was not new. It was done in terms of a system designed by Ryan and enthusiastically implemented by Van Onselen when he was in that position.

As time went on, I delegated this responsibility more and more to other staff members. When it came to Lindiwe’s office, I rarely signed off on any of her communication, leaving that to her Chief of Staff.

The claim that Lindiwe’s staff were isolated and marginalised within the party is simply unfounded. I happen to have an excellent working relationship with her Chief of Staff.

Indeed, it was me who suggested to Lindiwe that he be promoted to the position of Director of Operations in Parliament. Such was my faith in his abilities, I soon left Parliament to take up an office at the DA’s National Headquarters so that he could be in charge. Although I worked closely with him on a daily basis, I rarely got involved in the day-to-day running of Lindiwe’s office or the parliamentary operation in general.

The most disingenuous claim is that Lindiwe was shut out of the election campaign. The fact of the matter is that Lindiwe was on sick leave for six weeks of the campaign.

When she recovered, she was given speaking opportunities at all major events and her campaign team had free rein to set up events for her, which they did.

She did an excellent job of driving the Nkandla issue, although it was unfortunate that her illness prevented her from travelling to Nkandla to lay charges (which is why Mmusi went instead). Lindiwe featured on our national posters and represented the DA in the last two SABC election debates. The latter was my suggestion in recognition of Lindiwe’s brilliant debating abilities.

What many people do not know is that Lindiwe was the first in our party to be asked to avail herself for the nomination of Gauteng Premier Candidate. She declined, later telling people that she turned it down because she saw it as an attempt to “sideline” her.

Had Lindiwe been chosen as the Gauteng Premier Candidate, the same resources would have been put behind her. The decision to focus on Gauteng was a strategic one taken by party structures on which Lindiwe sat, and agreed; it had nothing to do with who the candidate was or any future internal elections. To say otherwise is paranoid and delusional.

It is amusing to read that Van Onselen thinks he “drives Zille crazy” with his almost daily diatribes against the party. It tells us a lot about his motives for driving a one-sided agenda in the media. He gets a kick out of it.

He thinks that what he writes has a huge impact on the party and its leader. But the truth is, it doesn’t. Most people in the party simply roll their eyes when they hear his name. He has been reduced to an embittered former party hack, obsessed with settling scores with his erstwhile opponents in the party.

Helen Zille has grown the support of the DA from 12% when she was elected in 2007 to 22% just seven years later. This is testament to her hard work, strategic insight and ability to keep the party united, despite the best efforts of some to sow division. She expects people to work hard, but gives them space to do their jobs.

Make no mistake, Helen is a strong leader. But she is strong enough to listen to criticism and accept or reject it based on her own assessment of the evidence. And she is strong enough to risk personal failure if she believes it is in the party’s interest to take a risk. These qualities explain why she has stayed the course when others have stumbled at the first hurdle.

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