NEW ANALYSIS

Will DA voters go with Maimane’s vision or Zille’s?

LWANDILE MTSOLO & BUYILE SANGOLEKHAYA MATIWANE HELEN Zille’s reasons for arguing that she should not be suspended unveil the internal fight for the battle of the soul of the DA. She is not only fighting to remain Western Cape premier, but is also fighting to keep the DA’S liberal ethos alive.

The question is: Which way will the Western Cape caucus go?

In the year 2000 Nelson Mandela once said: “The Democratic Alliance is a party of white bosses and black stooges which cares for black voters on the eve of the election.”

What picture does this paint about the DA that today shields its racial agenda by hanging onto a distortion of the legacy that Mandela stood for? The DA willingly or unwittingly can never wash away the white privilege that still lingers in the consciousness of many white liberal South Africans.

History teaches us that there is never in any society a class or strata that willingly relinquishes its privileges, just like white leaders in the DA will for ever have a privilege over the rest of the membership.

If Mmusi Maimane thinks Helen Zille will go easily, he must think again. Zille is not easily called South Africa’s iron lady. She has been able to deliver electoral successes for the DA because she is a liberal. In this liberal democracy of ours, it is liberals who win. The slave cannot shackle the master and if the slave sees a mirage of freedom, the master will whip the slave so much that he quickly remembers his place.

In her response to the letter of the chairperson of the DA’S federal executive (Fedex), James Selfe, a letter that had asked her to make representations why she should not be suspended, Zille outlines two elements that would appeal to any liberal conscience. Firstly, the rule of law and secondly, the right to freedom of expression.

Any layperson would know that Maimane’s initial declaration of suspension was a downright, politically immature mess. Selfe later confirmed this, indicating that the DA’S federal constitution allows for Zille to make these representations, before a final decision could be made. Her right to do so is based, one could argue, on a liberal principle of audi alteram partem – the other side must be heard.

Maimane, though, is politicising the process and is therefore not interested in following proper procedure. For him, the rule of law is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

Zille points this out when she says: “This initial material failure to comply with due process (not to comply with the audi rule) has serious implications. The leader has… made it clear that he wants me suspended and has already decided to suspend me.”

In other words, in this instance, Zille would have no objection if she was suspended, but the proper procedures must be followed first.

While the entire first section, 10 out of 45 paragraphs, of Zille’s response is dedicated to issues of procedure, she goes on to question procedural points about timing. Why was she not suspended when she was charged, she asks.

The constitution of the Western Cape mirrors the provisions made in the constitution of the Republic under which circumstances the premier may be removed. Twothirds of the provincial parliament will need to vote in favour of the premier’s removal if they have found him or her to (a) have seriously violated the constitution of the Republic or of the Western Cape, (b) be guilty of serious misconduct, or (c) be unable to perform the functions of the office.

At present, Zille cannot be found guilty on any of these.

As with the constitution of the Republic, the preamble of the constitution of the Western Cape reads: “Recognising and striving to heal the injustices of the past… recognising the need for peace, justice and reconciliation…”

While one could argue that Zille was guilty of not recognising the injustices of the past or that she was not recognising the need for reconciliation, it is hard to judge this serious enough to warrant her removal.

Yet both constitutions do provide for a vote of no confidence in a premier. Herein lies the second liberal element, the right to freedom of expression. Zille maintains the right of the Western Cape provincial council to adopt a motion.

In defending two members of her inner circle, Bonginkhosi Madikizela and Debbie Schaffer, who proposed the motion, as well as three others including Ivan Meyer, who drafted the motion, she states that the Fedex dismissal of the motion “shows how Fedex is trying to clamp down on any dissenting voice in the party, while using (her) as a scapegoat”.

Furthermore, she refers to a meeting she had with Maimane, in the presence of her legal representative, a meeting that should have been off the record, she says, but which has become a source of information being used against her.

Zille is explicit that “these are the kinds of discussions that should be the substance of debate in a political party. If a person can be suspended for simply expressing a different view, in confidential conversations, to that of the leader, the DA is on a slippery slope, and no longer represents or upholds the values of freedom, fairness and opportunity”.

The existential question for the DA and its members is, therefore, whether they will go with Maimane’s vision of a new DA, where the rule of law and freedom of expression are merely means to power, which is the goal, or whether they will remain faithful to the traditional values of the DA, represented by Zille, through liberalism, and defend these rights as goals in themselves.

Both Maimane and Zille admit they hold very different views of the future of the DA. The old is refusing to die, while the new is struggling to be born.

Lwandile Mtsolo is the chairperson of Sasco in Kwazulu-natal and Buyile Sangolekhaya Matiwane is chairperson of Sasco in the Western Cape.