PETER BRUCE | The key X is the one on the ballot paper

Another unedifying week on X. If I were running a political party I would think about not allowing any ranking member to spontaneously tweet anything other than their schedule, a regular newsletter or podcast or a considered response to a public tragedy.

Data collected by Gareth van Onselen’s Victory Research — the most highly regarded pollster in the country — shows almost 95% of the electorate either don’t know what X (formerly Twitter) is or hardly ever use it.

While there’s little reason to argue with that, the fact is that much of our political discourse happens between the 5% who do use the platform regularly. They set the news agenda and direct or influence politics across the spectrum, from Left to Right.

Nothing better illustrates this than the spiral of comment that followed the report by the investigative journalism outfit amaBhungane that the department of correctional services (prisons) cannot account for 29,000 high-risk convicts on parole.

That’s a huge number, and even in my small village we routinely brace for a spike in local crime figures when parolees come out of jail.

Pouncing on the amaBhungane reporting, TV news quickly got new DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis on camera. He was obligingly horrified and hoped the minister of correctional services, Pieter Groenewald of the FF+, would explain.

It’s not pretty, especially as the DA and the FF+ are supposed to get along. Sort of

He then took to his personal X account and had a full go: “Groenewald must not hide behind excuses. He must act today to find these payrolees, bring them back before the law, and hold every official accountable who allowed them to disappear.”

Stung, Groenewald replied on X: “Geordin. The 29k is since 1991 ... I am in a process of electronic bracelets for parolees. I had a parole summit last year ... Don’t practise cheap politics.”

“You held a summit?” Hill-Lewis replied. “28,000 parolees, many of them convicted of violent offences, are missing on your watch. And you want the victims ... to be grateful that you held a talk-shop?”

And so on. It’s not pretty, especially as the DA and the FF+ are supposed to get along. Sort of. But apart from Hill-Lewis reasonably making political hay out of yet another governance disaster and Groenewald reasonably reminding us he has been minister for only two years, not 35, nothing actually happens. The ANC would’ve enjoyed it.

Sure, you have to ask how hard it is to put a monitor around the ankle of a parolee as they leave prison. But I couldn’t help feeling deflated by it all. Hill-Lewis has seemed almost becalmed since he became DA leader a month ago. He decided to remain mayor of Cape Town, and so what we mostly see of him is him doing that job.

But he is also now a national political leader. I get why he would not want to be in the cabinet, and I suspect he’ll remain mayor until the local elections in November. But I still want to see him on the national stage, talking to us all and not just the party faithful.

The DA made much of winning a ward off the ANC in a by-election this week in the desperate Emfuleni municipality. It won by just eight votes. What remains of the ANC vote was dented by the SACP separately contesting the ward. But Emfuleni borders Midvaal, which the DA has run splendidly for years, and you’d have expected a bigger victory.

The DA must surely move more quickly. Since the departures of John Steenhuisen as leader and Helen Zille as head of the federal executive (effectively its CEO), both these positions are now held by part-timers. Hill-Lewis is a mayor, and Ashor Sarupen, Zille’s successor on the federal executive, is a deputy finance minister.

But a general election is just three years away and the party requires full-time leadership and management.

Hill-Lewis should be supported by a proper team — campaign managers to plan events and keep him out of trouble, people to get him in front of the media, speechwriters and policy-makers to give him something to say. Sarupen’s job is to create the space and find the money for the winning new political direction Hill-Lewis has promised.

If anything, Sarupen’s is the bigger job: ensuring the party makes a serious impression on black voters. It won’t manage this simply on the strength of Hill-Lewis being a nice man, a cuddly figure. The task of getting more black South Africans behind the DA would be almost impossible at the best of times. Holding on to the traditional DA base while crafting new alliances and reaching for the black vote is going to take great skill and a great deal of time, and a hideous amount of money.

Emfuleni was a remarkable result but the scary thing is that it seemed to be such a surprise. Not everything is going to be that easy.