Steenhuisen: self-indulgent tweeting hurts DA

The only way the DA will regain the electoral support it lost in the 2019 general and provincial elections and attract more voters, is for leaders to stop their “self-indulgent” behaviour on social media.

The DA also has to be rooted in communities and ensure they fight for citizens to get improved services. This is according to interim DA leader John Steenhuisen.

Steenhuisen, who has been at the helm of the official opposition party since Mmusi Maimane quit in October, wants the top job on a permanent basis.

He will go head-to-head with Gauteng party leader John Moodey and KwaZulu-Natal MPL Mbali Ntuli when the party elects new leaders in May.

Steenhuisen told the Daily Dispatch on Friday that internal party squabbles that played out on social media were losing them voters.

His comments come after Ntuli asked Steenhuisen on Twitter last week if he thought apartheid was a crime against humanity.

This was after the last apartheid-era president FW de Klerk initially denied that the racially oppressive system was a crime against humanity before later withdrawing his comment and apologising for it.

“I don’t think that anyone can deny that apartheid was a crime against humanity,” Steenhuisen said.

Some DA senior leaders, such as federal chair Helen Zille, have in the past been caught up in social media storms, for example when she controversially tweeted that colonialism was not all bad.

So does the DA have a social media policy?

“We do have a social media policy but it’s a bit of a double bind because we are a liberal party that believes people have a right to express an opinion. We are also a party that does not believe in a command culture where everyone has to think, talk, look and be the same.

“But I do think that enormous harm is done to the party when you have leaders who fight on social media. I think it turns voters off. Nobody likes to see it,” Steenhuisen said.

“It means that whatever message you’re trying to drive gets completely gets drowned out by that self-indulgent behaviour, so I’ve made an appeal to the party and the [parliamentary] caucus to say ‘let’s just stop with this ill-discipline and if you have a problem with someone, pick up the phone and have a word with them.”

The DA heavyweight bemoaned how the party, for the first time since its inception, failed to grow its electoral support in 2019. The DA’s poor showing at the polls last year effectively led to former leader Maimane leaving the party amid calls for him to step down.

Whether his exit, and that of former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba, when they said the DA was no longer the vehicle to bring change to SA, will result in the party continuing with its downward trajectory, will be known at the 2021 municipal elections.

Steenhuisen believes they can persuade more people to place their faith in the DA.

“We have to reconnect with the voters who abandoned us in the last election. But we also have to connect with voters who never voted for us before. That means we have to get to communities, be on the ground and drive issues that matter to them.

“In my recent tour around the country it was clear that many communities feel disconnected from both political parties and parliament and the political system. They feel it can’t make a difference to their lives any more.”

Asked if he thought he had done enough to convince the majority of delegates at the elective congress, Steenhuisen said he would continue campaigning until the last minute.

We do have a social media policy but it’s a bit of a double bind because we are a liberal party that believes people have a right to express an opinion