Tough to repair DA racial divide – but SA needs it

One thing you can say about Herman Mashaba: if he says he is going to do something, he follows through. He threatened to quit the DA if what he termed “right-wing” forces took control of the party … and he did. There are some serious consequences of his resignation, which he announced yesterday and which takes effect at the end of November.

The first is that it will usher in a new era in municipal politics in Johannesburg. Already, the ANC is making sweetheart overtures to the EFF so they can join forces and take back the city from the DA.

Worryingly, this could mean that a return to ANC governance might see the return of inefficiency and corruption – the very things that Mashaba, love him or loathe him, was trying to root out. Although Mashaba may have been brash, arrogant and often at times prone to ill-considered outbursts, he won many fans of all races and across the political spectrum because of his undoubted commitment to clean up the most populous city in the country.

In that no-nonsense, get-your-hands dirty approach to governance, he echoed his party’s attitude in the places where it has brought about the most effective municipal and provincial governments in South Africa. So, he will be missed.

At the same time, though, his acrimonious departure, coming as it did on the back of pressure on DA leader Mmusi Maimane following the DA’s poor showing in the elections earlier this year, has highlighted the fragility of the multi-racial veneer of the party.

Mashaba and Maimane – who is also rumoured to be considering throwing in the towel – believe the DA has been “recaptured” by conservative whites who will stick to their entrenched “liberal values” no matter what. Those values, many non-whites in the party feel, are hampering real unity across colour lines in SA.

The DA attracted many new black recruits in the days of Jacob Zuma, who may have, unwittingly, been their best marketer. The party showed there was an alternative to the rampant corruption and cadre-deployment disaster which has been the ANC administration. Many of those new DA members also respected Helen Zille, not only for her principled anti-apartheid track record, but for her commitment to non-racialism.

All that changed with Zille’s ill-thought out tweets about how not all aspects of colonialism were bad. In that, she badly misjudged the emotions and feelings of the very black people the DA had been hoping to draw into their ranks. Instead of taking her slap on the wrist, apologising and going into the sunset, Zille’s ambitions – and her almost messianical belief in her political ideology – have seen her make a comeback.

And, like her or loathe her, that return to the fray (even is she swears she will “stay in her lane”) has looked a lot like Madam coming back to sort out the servants – to many black party supporters anyway.

Mashaba’s resignation has dealt a blow to the DA. It will be difficult to find a replacement with his charisma or energy. But it will be even more difficult to repair the racial divide within the party.

Zille, however, has the energy and the charm to do just that and many are the political commentators who under-estimate these attributes of hers.

The whole affair is sad, because at this juncture in our history, possibly more than at any other time, we need a strong, principled, inclusive opposition party which can offer a credible alternative to the ANC.

Otherwise, the future will hold “more of the same” from the ruling party… and it might become all but impossible to prevent us from becoming just another failed state.