DA's political future rests on quality, not colour, of its leaders

THE legacy of apartheid has proven to be doggedly enduring, and one of its most tenacious residues is that of racial polarisation.

Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma chose to talk about "two nations" and "our people". Both themes are exclusive and serve to reinforce racial polarisation, and it is intentionally done because it is deemed to serve the ANC's political purpose. This is not difficult to understand, because the demographics of South Africa are such that whichever party has the lion's share of the so-called black African vote is guaranteed to govern, regardless of its policies or track record of government.

This demographic reality, however, is becoming less and less certain for the ANC, especially under the dubious and much maligned Zuma presidency.

This has resulted in the ANC ratcheting up its "bogeyman" propaganda that the Democratic Alliance is a white party determined to reintroduce apartheid and stop social grants to millions of people who have become dependent on them.

The DA, on the other hand, has systematically gone about building an alternative to the ANC. This we have done by becoming a party for all South Africans. This slow, incremental growth has taken us from a 1.7% party in 1994 to a 24% party in the 2011 local government elections. These statistics attest to unprecedented growth that no other political party has been able to achieve since 1994.

This growth took place under the leadership of Tony Leon, who had the unenviable and almost impossible task of being the leader of the opposition during the presidency of the iconic Mandela.

Despite that, he grew the party to a significant 13%. Since his resignation, Helen Zille, who became leader, did so under the promise and public commitment to realign South African politics. This realignment has been slow but sure, and the merger with the Independent Democrats has been one of its most significant achievements. This merger resulted in the sum of the merged parties being greater than that of the two parts.

The DA's growth has taken place under the leadership of two white leaders who have made an inimitable impact on the political landscape of post-1994 South Africa.

During this time of sustained growth, the performance of all the other opposition parties, without exception, has been less than spectacular. In fact, they have all flattered only to deceive. The catastrophic implosion of the Congress of the People (COPE) is but the latest case in point.

All these parties have been led by black South Africans, some of whom have been prominent personalities. Despite this and the legacy of a white minority-led regime that spawned apartheid, they were unable to either attract or sustain enough significant public support to make them an alternative force to the hegemonic ANC.

In this regard, I am of the firm belief that the successful future of the DA and its ongoing political fortunes will be determined by the quality of its leaders and not the colour of their skin.

Any organisation, especially a political party, that determines that its leaders must conform to any kind of qualification based on ethnicity or racial, cultural or social criteria is doomed to obscurity, because these qualifications are by their very nature exclusive and exclusionary. Any organisation that allows or promotes the concept of "birthright" leadership cannot sustain itself, especially in a country like ours that has felt the consequences of this kind of "nationalist" domination both pre- and post-1994.

In this regard, Carol Paton recently wrote that the DA should "preach what it practises", and if we are to do this, we must be an open-opportunity-society party for all South Africans.

This brings me to the recent issue of the DA's overture to Dr Mamphela Ramphele to be the presidential candidate. This was an authentic offer to her to lead the next step in the realignment and non-racialisation of South African politics.

The negotiations with her have been ongoing for a number of years, and the offer did not come as a surprise. Having said this, what did come as a surprise was the media leak from the DA federal executive that could have played a role in scuppering the proposed deal.

Having served in the federal executive of the party for almost 13 years, I have never spoken about the discussions that ensue when such decisions are made. In this case, however, my opposition to the proposal by the party leader was leaked to the Sunday Times.

It is rare for decisions to be taken by a vote in the federal executive, but it is a mechanism that is used if unanimity cannot be reached. In this regard, I voted against the proposal because I had reservations about whether Ramphele would bring anything of political significance to our electoral efforts. Her on-again, off-again flirtation with the DA, her obvious political naivety and vacuous coherence or lack thereof on important policy issues were what made me oppose the proposal.

Having said that, my track record in the party is testimony to the fact that I value and respect democracy and democratic outcomes. Therefore, once the decision had been made, I set about promoting it to my provincial structures. There are internal party records to this effect.

The fiasco that has since unfolded has served only to reinforce my personal opinion about Ramphele, and I am not the kind of politician to relish such a situation because it serves no one's interest to adopt an "I told you so" attitude.

The duplicitous and deceitful behaviour of Ramphele has, fortunately, been effectively countered by the example of Patricia de Lille joining the DA and the recent joining of the DA by former ANC premier and COPE MP Nosimo Balindlela.

These two individuals have done more for political realignment and the promotion of non-racialism than most by showing that real democracy means you can make choices about political alignment. They are both testimony that constitutional democracy liberates all of us to make choices, and these choices often mean that ethnic, racial, cultural and social stereotypes are broken by brave political pioneer pathfinders who show the less bold the alternatives that democracy offers.

South Africans will show at the polls that they recognise that the DA is indeed the vanguard party of political realignment and that its offer to the leader of Agang was authentic and in the best interest of offering a realistic alternative to the dubious and deplorable Zuma administration. They will also show Ramphele and Agang how little respect and faith they have for her and her "organisation".

Trollip is the DA's leader in the Eastern Cape