LETTERS
Failed bid to paint DA as reformed
ON JANUARY 24, the Star published an article by the former chief whip of the DAand ambassador of South Africa to Thailand, Mr Douglas Gibson titled; “ANC needs new blood”.
The current state of the ANC and the attendant internal succession debates, although not official, have generated an unprecedented upsurge of public interest outside structures of the party, including leading personalities within the opposition ranks. This means that even fierce opponents of the ANC and transformation in South Africa and elsewhere in the world have keen interest in the internal leadership and organisational matters of the movement.
In the article, Gibson laments failure of the ANC to renew itself and adjust its policies in line with the interests of the voters.
He concludes by lamenting: “The ruling party needs to spend time in the opposition benches so it can find its soul and policies that resonate with the voters.”
Perhaps Gibson deserves to be reminded that in its own reflections on the challenges of renewal, the ANC has conceded that without radical renewal it deserves no future. Gibson’s lamentation in this regard is not a discovery but a point conceded to by the ANC a long time ago.
Gibson went further to glorify the young leader of the DA, Mmusi Maimane as the best model of organisational and leadership renewal that the ANC can draw lessons from. In this he omits to concede that renewal for the ANC is not about narrow and shortlived desires to save the face of the organisation against the onslaught of racist and patriarchal outlook asis the case with the DA in its choice of Maimane as a leader. This hypocrisy of the DA iscompounded by a fallacious posture that Maimane was elected uncontested.
Is Gibson’s contribution meant to advance the future of the South Africa we want or a mere political bluff from a dying political dinosaur that still wants to cling to the umbilical cord of right wing conservative dogma?
Quite honestly, there is no empirical evidence to suggest otherwise.
Gibson’s argument was riddled with fallacies and ideological inconsistencies in a desperate attempt to portray the DA as a reformed organisation that reflects the interests and demographics of South Africa.
The parading of Maimane as a champion of transformation is not a true reflection of the character of the DA. In fact it is opposite. There is not even a generational mix and non-racialism in the composition of its leading structures both at party political level and institutions of governance like Parliament and municipal councils including the cabinet of the Western Cape. This is the counsel Gibson should give to the DA instead of wasting his time and energies on the ANC.
During the 1999 national elections campaign, the DA under Tony Leon and his chief lieutenant, Douglas Gibson, adopted a radical anti-transformation posture articulated in the slogan “Gatvol – Fight Back” which in essence meant fighting the aspirations of the black majority as advanced by the transformation agenda of the ANC. Once more, how does the current neoliberal outlook of the DA and its composition reflect a party for change in South Africa?
Contrary to the ANC that has gone public about its internal challenges, DA veterans and its leadership want to fool South Africans that they are an alternative to the ANC amiddeep-seated racial tension between the white supremacists and the African minority in the party. Bongani Mkongi ANC MP, Western Cape
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