JUST GET OFF TWITTER

If the DA was flying high in the 2016 municipal elections, it seems to have been in steady decline ever since. Two years back, all looked swell. The party had captured three more major cities and its leader, Mmusi Maimane, was talking brashly of sweeping the floor with the ANC in the coming national election.

After losing its trump card, Jacob Zuma, the DA has seemed schizophrenic. It hasn’t helped that Cyril Ramaphosa, despite his bumbling efforts to outflank the populists, is more attractive to voters.

By contrast, the DA’S leadership was unable to deal with the formidable Patricia de Lille when its Cape Town power base fractured. The slanging match made the party look puerile.

Of course, personality clashes are common in politics. But the deeper problem is an apparent schism on policy. The DA is sending mixed messages on empowerment, immigration and land. It seems torn between winning new black voters and not alienating existing white voters. You’d think, by now, an edict would have gone out on a blue letterhead banning its politicians from Twitter.

These are issues the DA needs to address. It is by no means clear that Maimane is the man to do so. Right now he is impressing no-one, but merely presiding over a confused, splintering party that looks less and less capable by the day of being a winning alternative.