DA’s growth comes with an identity crisis

The DA is again at sixes and sevens over race. As race is the issue that perpetually trips it up, this is no surprise. The party’s stance on it goes to the centre of its identity.

Unfortunately for the DA, as it moves to clarify its position through, for instance, revising its policy on BEE, its internal problems will get worse, not better.

Most political parties are founded on values or a central objective unequivocally shared by its members. A nationalist party such as the ANC, for instance, is easily able to forward a compelling case for why it deserves the support of the black majority. Its raison d’être is a commitment to further the material aspirations and circumstances of the nation, and particularly those of African people.

At its genesis as the Progressive Party in 1959, the DA was established on values that were liberal: a political philosophy in which the individual rather than the group is seen as primary and the most important unit of society. The values espoused by liberalism are freedom and equality, and are best expressed in practice through the various freedoms an individual would, in a democratic and liberal environment, exercise.

But along with SA’s political evolution, the Progressive Party evolved, becoming the Progressive Federal Party, then the Democratic Party and then the Democratic Alliance in 2000. With this came electoral growth. From Helen Suzman’s single seat in parliament in 1959, in 2014 under Helen Zille, it won 89.

Growth is the cause of the DA’s troubled identity. As a liberal-oriented party, identity and value questions were easy. The DA stood for an opportunity society based on merit. The best people got the best jobs and redress meant not much more than equal education opportunities.

But after swallowing up minority political formations and then moving on to try to capture a share of the African vote, the DA found it was no longer a liberal party. People who had come in, established themselves as leaders and become public representatives did not share common values. The central objective was not to pursue individual freedom, but to contest power.

The years have seen a perpetual process of defining values that encompass everyone in the party.

In 2013, after a bruising internal debate, the liberals in the DA accepted that race was an important indicator for redress. In 2015 they were pushed a little further, when the values of freedom, fairness and opportunity were inserted into its constitution.

Mmusi Maimane, elected leader at that congress, said: “You can’t say we can build a fair society if you do not acknowledge that society is unfair on the basis of race.”

In April, at the most recent congress, the frontier shifted again. This time the push from Maimane was to have the value of “diversity” inserted into the constitution, an obvious reference to a push for more black leaders. He won again, though the liberal crew inserted a safeguard — that racial quotas would be prohibited — taking some of the punch out of the victory.

As the size and complexion of the DA’s political presence has changed, so has the size and complexion of its base.

DA congresses are interspersed with cries of “Amandla” and freedom songs. To the new members, BEE and employment equity make intuitive sense. Though these policies have not helped everyone, it is clear that without them many who have advanced might not have.

MOVING ON TO TRY TO CAPTURE A SHARE OF THE AFRICAN VOTE, THE DA FOUND IT WAS NO LONGER A LIBERAL PARTY

Into this environment of delicately balanced and negotiated compromises a newcomer has brashly arrived. The super smart, articulate and super conservative Gwen Ngwenya, formerly prominent at liberal think-tank the Institute of Race Relations, is now the DA’s head of policy.

Her mandate is to develop new party policies to “put clear blue water between the DA and the ANC”.

This is what Ngwenya has set about doing. At a federal executive meeting in July, she presented a framework of broad ideas, among them that the ANC’s model of BEE be emphatically rejected and an alternative policy for empowerment of poor South Africans — not determined by race — be adopted.

After Ngwenya aired some of her views a storm erupted, with various DA leaders at odds over what the party had decided at the meeting or was contemplating. What will happen when those who joined the DA over the past 10 years get to hear of the new policy direction?

As the DA’s national congress has come and gone, and standards of internal democracy are not very high, maybe the plan is not to consult them.

Either way, there is more trouble on the horizon. Paton is writer-at-large.