DA aims to tackle poverty

I am a long-time supporter of the Institute of Race Relations and of Frans Cronje. For this reason I found his letter, “DA Plays a Dangerous Game”, February 13, difficult to understand.

He implies the DA has chosen some horrendous new policy about race and BEE. He fails to mention that the policy is the same as that which the party had during the 2014 and 2016 elections. To state that the DA has chosen to settle on race as a proxy is to misunderstand the DA position. It is not the proxy that is the focus; it is the social and economic deprivation that is such a feature of our society, and of black people in particular, that the DA wants to tackle.

Suggesting that the party does not have a moral conviction about the pervasive poverty of so many of our people and does not have a sincere commitment to achieving the principles of the SA constitution is to do the DA an injustice. It does not deserve the allegation that it wants some sort of short-term advantage by dabbling in racial nationalism.

It is precisely because the DA has the support of voters right across the racial spectrum that it is the largest nonracial political party in the country and is therefore best placed to offer decent, sensible and reasonable policies that will start to put right the mess the ANC has made of its 25 years in government.

Douglas Gibson Former DA chief whip