DA complains about report in paper

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen’s expression of willingness to cooperate with the ANC does not signify a change in the DA’s position, the party’s chief whip Natasha Mazzone has said.

Mazzone on Monday filed a complaint with the Press Ombudsman following an article in the Sunday Times, which said that Steenhuisen’s stance that the DA would be willing to work with “reformers” in the ANC... “marks a significant departure for the DA, which has long been opposed to any cooperation with the ANC”.

Mazzone, in a letter to the ombudsman, wrote: “This is simply not true. Not only has the DA under Steenhuisen’s leadership repeatedly extended a hand across the aisle to whichever reformers remain in the ANC, this has also been the consistent position of the previous DA federal leader, Mmusi Maimane, who often spoke of building a new majority by cooperating with those in the ANC who share the DA’s values and vision for South Africa.”

She quotes a number of reports on this, including a speech at Constitution Hill in 2017, in which Maimane said: “We need to put all our energies into saving our country. And I am prepared to work with all parties that share this goal. This includes those good people remaining in the ANC who have been moved by recent events to speak out about what is happening in their party...”

She said Steenhuisen’s views were not accurately reflected in the paper, and in his answers he stated that the DA “intends to be the strong party of a new, realigned majority built around shared values. It intends to be the bulwark against the creep of the radical left in the guise of the ANC’s RET faction and the EFF, who have already launched their fightback campaign”.

She also said Steenhuisen himself, in his reply to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address two weeks ago, said the DA would be introducing Bills to reform the economy – and that the party only needed “a little more than a third” of the ANC to back them.

She said ex-leader Helen Zille – now federal council chair – also called for “a political realignment where centrists in the ANC and other parties work with the DA to fix South Africa”.

DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia accused the Sunday Times of “shamelessly twisting” Steenhuisen’s words. –

Steenhuisen’s leadership repeatedly extended a hand to reformers in ANC.

Natasha Mazzone DA chief whip