Steenhuisen’s ‘why are they coming to the Western Cape’ election jab causes a stir

DA leader John Steenhuisen's “why are they coming to the Western Cape” election campaign speech aimed as a jab at opposition parties has caused a stir, with the party accused of intolerance to competition in its “home ground”. 

Steenhuisen led the party's election manifesto launch in Paarl at the weekend.

He told party supporters the biggest risks to the province ahead of the elections was voter complacency and parties including Gayton McKenzie's Patriotic Alliance (PA), the newly founded Rise Mzansi, GOOD Party and National Coloured Congress (NCC). Some of the parties are coalition government kingmakers. 

“The biggest risk to continued progress and building a better future for all of us in this province is complacency and mercenary parties like the PA, Rise Mzansi, GOOD and NCC. They are not interested in taking on the ANC.

“Why are they not campaigning in Limpopo and North West? Why are they coming to the Western Cape to try to unseat the only government that created 300,000 jobs last year? Why are they coming here to the only government that arrested more than 27,000 criminals in the past year? Why are they coming here to an economy that works?

“Why are they not focusing their real attention on the real enemy of progress in South Africa, which is the ANC?” he said.

Steenhuisen accused the opposition parties of wanting to loot the Western Cape government.

“They know there is nothing left to loot in other provinces and want to come to the Western Cape because they want to get their hands on the budget and money that has been well looked after by our government. If they get that right, it's going to be the biggest bank heist you've ever seen. Within a few months the money will be gone in this province.”

He said other provinces were full of despair.

“I feel despair whenever I return to Durban, the city where I grew up. A city that was once a tourist hotspot has been reduced to ashes, with mountains of garbage lining the streets.”

Steenhuisen was not happy with the City of Johannesburg, a municipality which the DA led in past years through coalition governments.

“I fight not to be overwhelmed by despair when I visit Johannesburg, once the beating heart of our industrial economy, now reduced by the looters in the ANC, the EFF and the PA to a place where councillors spend millions on bodyguards while residents no longer have drinking water, where commuters drive on crumbling roads that explode, and where people burn to death inside their homes because the fire service has collapsed.”

He ended his speech with: “On May 29 go out and vote for the DA to keep the Cape’s hope alive, and to keep the despair of dooms day out of the Western Cape.”

The speech has been lambasted as fearmongering.

PA leader McKenzie said: “If this man behaves and thinks in these territorial terms regarding the Western Cape and opposition parties publicly, can you imagine how he behaves in closed meetings? I was there and I was shocked every day, just as some of you are shocked. The PA is coming, Johnny boy.”

Radio presenter Ashraf Garda compared the speech to how the taxi industry responds to competition.

“In other words: 'Don't play on our turf. This turf belongs to us. Go and do your business elsewhere. Just don’t do it here. This is ours'. Reminds me of the taxi associations which unilaterally mark out zones and they don’t want other taxis to enter. And then the metered taxis want to push the Ubers and Bolt out of their self-demarcated turf. Imagine if Telkom banned the arrival of the mobile industry in the 1990s because it’s 'their right' to 'own the industry because it’s their turf'.

“Elections, as in business, are determined by service delivery to markets. Markets decide. The only reason we are talking about a coalition is because the governing party has governed miserably in recent years and the DA, the EFF and social justice have not filled that space adequately. Voters are looking at options. No party — not the ANC, DA, EFF and the many smaller parties — have the right to determine who owns space. That right is granted and taken away at an election.”

DA councillor Renaldo Gouws defended the party, saying: “When the DA warned you against [former president Jacob] Zuma, you wrote the DA was fearmongering. When the DA warned you about cadre deployment, you wrote the DA was fearmongering. When the DA warned you about [President] Cyril Ramaphosa, you wrote the DA was fearmongering.”

Here are some reactions from social media:

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