Relentless media criticism of DA out of touch with reality
It’s hard to know if there is actually such a thing as a “commentariat” in SA; there are now so many voices and so many platforms. But assuming there is, I have to say the commentariat’s view of the DA really sucks.
This is a hard thing to say. I’ve worked with many journalists of different stripes over the years. Some are friends, some foes, but generally speaking I respect and admire their analysis of the ANC, friend and foe alike. But when it comes to the DA, they just go to pieces. Why?
Among the bizarre suggestions over the past weeks are that the DA should disband so that a more viable alternative to the ANC can rise, that DA leader Mmusi Maimane should resign, and that he should distance himself from the “neorightwing” in his party.
This intellectual slant oozes its way into the news coverage. City Press declared — in a front-page lead, no less — that the DA was on the verge of splitting, something that oddly hasn’t happened. The apotheosis was a news report about a month ago that was distorted to make it seem as if Maimane was vaingloriously comparing himself to Nelson Mandela. It was accepted at face value by almost the entire media, before some backtracking.
If you arrived from Mars and looked at this commentary, you would think the DA was on the verge of implosion. Of course, the DA is undeniably at a low point. Its attempt to eject Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille has been absurdly ham-fisted. More broadly, the DA, like the EFF, has to find a new weapon with which to attack the ANC now that its automatic votegenerator — former president Jacob Zuma — has gone.
Yet, look at the results of recent by-elections and a different picture emerges. Since President Cyril Ramaphosa came to power on February 14, the DA has contested six by-elections as the incumbent. It won all six, three with higher majorities.
In one, in Saldanha Bay, the DA’s Charleen van Nooi won Ward 3 with 52.8% of the vote, compared with 70% in the 2016 elections, a 17-point swing. The DA also retook a seat in Oudtshoorn with a markedly reduced majority.
The ANC has also contested six seats as incumbent since Ramaphosa took power. It lost one, and in four its majority was reduced. In Ward 7 of DR JS Moroka Municipality, the ANC candidate “won” with a margin of 41.06%, compared with 70.17% in 2016, a swing of 30 points in a by-election where the turnout was 50%. Perhaps the ANC should disband so a new, more effective party can emerge?
Interestingly, the Inkatha Freedom Party won a seat from the ANC and increased its majorities in two seats contested as an incumbent, including Nkandla.
By-election results are always a bit of a mishmash; it depends on which seats come up and, of course, on the candidates. But still, there is a sensible takeaway from these results, and it’s not that the DA is on the verge of collapse. It is that DA voters have nowhere to go. The other takeaway is that the ANC has a big problem in KwaZulu-Natal.
As Gareth van Onselen of the Institute of Race Relations wrote recently, the DA is rarely if ever analysed on its own terms. “Its commitment to liberal nonracialism is rejected and mocked.
“Its principles and policy, as they exist on paper, are ignored in favour of innuendo and hearsay.”
It must be said that both the EFF and the ANC often complain of the same thing. But seldom have I seen such a mismatch between reality and analysis as is now apparent regarding the DA. The big problem is identity politics, which is now completely embedded in the thinking of the local commentariat.
The dangers of identity politics, its shortcomings, the way it’s rooted in group-think, resentment and envy, the way it offers no contextual critique — all of this is just washed away. The same people who would lambaste US President Donald Trump’s version of identity politics regard it as acceptable in the South African context.
The DA wrestles with the issue, because identity politics is important, and has come up with an uncomfortable but workable compromise. Commentators often criticise the DA, correctly in my view, for the disproportionate number of white people in leadership positions. But DA leaders read the criticism with a sense of disbelief because they differ so much with one another on identity politics those divisions are not demarcated by the race of the people involved.
What’s happening here is that the centre of the political debate has vested for so long in ANC-type ideas, policies and notions, that they now seem normal. The DA cannot be seen but through that lens. It may lose support in the 2019 election. It may not. But disintegrate? Please, get real.
IF YOU ARRIVED FROM MARS AND LOOKED AT THIS COMMENTARY, YOU WOULD THINK THE DA WAS ON THE VERGE OF IMPLOSION