Former DA leaders are beginning to shine a spotlight on the inability of the party to become what most South Africans expect of it — a mature leader of the opposition and a possible alternative to the ANC.
It is an expected but odd thing to watch: ex-DA leaders turning on their party while the DA itself is turning on its coalition partners while the ANC’s biggest critic is not the opposition — but its alliance partners and disenchanted members.
Former DA KwaZulu-Natal MPL Mbali Ntuli described party leader John Steenhuisen this week as “weak by choice and nature” noting further that “John’s problem isn’t his matric. It’s his ineptitude, lack of charisma, temperament, sensitivity to criticism and no vision. He’s at best a lieutenant when what the DA needs is a general.”
Ntuli, who had lost to Steenhuisen in a battle for the party leadership in 2020, was reacting to social media talk that DA federal council chairperson Helen Zille was more powerful than ol’ John. “John is weak by choice and nature but he wanted the job. He must step up or be remembered as the weakest DA leader. This is national politics ... People’s lives literally depend on the decisions made in this situation.”
I would alter the last bit to say the DA’s performance isn’t just about the DA. The party’s inability to take advantage of the ANC’s failures makes it complicit in the hopelessness descending on our country. People’s lives, to revert to Ntuli, depend on a working democratic system.
Yet, when the ANC is at its weakest, with its “corruption-fighting president” embroiled in the Phala Phala saga that threatens to annihilate his reputation, you can’t exactly rely on the second biggest party to show leadership, to be mature, to present itself as a home to the many disgruntled by the ANC.
The party’s inability to take advantage of the ANC’s failures makes it complicit in the hopelessness descending on our country.
Another former DA leader Phumzile van Damme this week showed us how unfocused the DA was on what ought to be its target. She said “the DA whines more about its coalition partners than it does the ANC”.
The party blames “opportunistic small parties” for the slow but painful collapse of its coalition government in the City of Johannesburg. Van Damme asked: “You want to get a sense of the toxicity of the DA’s internal culture? Ask its coalition partners. See the interactions? The baaskap cult mentality? (It wasn’t always like this, though, there was a little more EQ back then).”
The small parties, meanwhile, also blame the DA for its arrogance which manifests itself in its unwillingness to share power. This, of course, led to a successful motion of no confidence vote against council speaker Vasco da Gama on September 1, followed by another against Mpho Phalatse a week ago.
The result is that 10 MMCs are out of office and many officials are now wondering how they will be paying their bills this month end. Phalatse’s supporters are wondering if she was deliberately led to the slaughterhouse by a party only too comfortable to be in charge in its Kaap laager.
As the DA endures the slow burn, Zwakele Mncwango resigned his position as chief whip of the DA caucus in KwaZulu-Natal, after “much soul-searching and reflection”. This soul-searching led him to abandon the DA leadership position this week.
Another former DA leader, Bongani Baloyi, who is now ActionSA Gauteng head, said this week that “anyone with eyes” could see that the DA had abandoned its values and was only interested in the Western Cape. He publicly wooed Phalatse to join ActionSA. “She would be welcome with open arms. She would find herself in an environment of people who are like her, who believe in what she believes in; people who want to disrupt politics as usual,” said Baloyi. Inasmuch as he came across like a big brother offering a hug to a bruised and damaged sister, he was also making an important statement about what the DA had become.
In the end, the DA has managed to create a legion of critics who were former believers, a group that is increasingly finding its voice outside the DA, lamenting it for being blind to what must be an opportunity for growth.
The DA has managed to create a coalition of the disaffected — which is now extending an unsolicited public embrace to Phalatse because they know she must be going through the most because the grade 12 lieutenant — not the general the DA deserves — is blinded by his ineptitude and lack of vision.
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