Maimane eyes Union Buildings
Pledge to take DA’s vision to a new level
MMUSI Maimane, the DA’s first black leader, says his party is headed to the Union Buildings and President Jacob Zuma better watch out.
“When we leave Port Elizabeth… every step we take will be one step closer to the Union Buildings. We must and we will win power in our lifetime. We will be the next government of this beautiful country,” Maimane told 1 425 cheering DA congress delegates in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro after he was announced leader yesterday.
Later, the 34-year-old party boss told the Daily News the DA would hit the ground running with not just activists, but everyone, from the leader down, being active.
“Activists will not just be people handing out pamphlets, but they will engage people,” Maimane said, adding he was bringing with him his own “unique” style. “We have to take our vision to a new level.”
Earlier, he said the DA needed to communicate its message on its own terms.
“Those who say we are a white party are misleading the country,” said Maimane, pointing out that congress delegates were overwhelmingly black DA members. “The DA is no party for racists.”
Central to the campaign to win the hearts and minds of South Africans is the “freedom, fairness, opportunity” values charter adopted at congress. It aims to explain the DA as a non-racial party to South Africans to underscore that the country’s largest opposition party was not a niche, largely white haven, as critics like the ruling ANC describe it frequently.
“The people who share our values cannot be defined by race or by class. They do not live in a particular part of the country,” Maimane told delegates, to cheers.
Understood to have notched up 88.9 percent of yesterday’s votes, Maimane can comfortably claim an overwhelming victory.
Dominated
Although the weekend DA congress was dominated by tributes and thanks to its former leader Helen Zille – she will stay on in the DA-governed Western Cape until her second, and legally last, term ends with the 2019 elections – Maimane moved swiftly to set himself up as his own man.
“That I am somebody’s proxy can’t be true,” he said, tackling race in an unusually frank move for the DA: “If you don’t see I’m black, then you don’t see me at all.”
But this would not mean a change of direction for the party, which is more comfortable talking about creating opportunities to redress disadvantage, but rejects racebased quotas.
Maimane reiterated DA policies remained focused on a system of social security to protect people from extreme poverty, delivery of quality services where it governs, a quality education and growing the economy to create jobs.
These are outlined in the DA value charter, adopted at the weekend.
Maimane’s election as Zille’s successor ended two weeks of bruising leadership campaigning. Even those not necessarily in favour of Maimane credited his team with an energetic campaign, including on social media.
Defeated rival for the top post, Wilmot James, shook Maimane’s hand on stage after the leadership results announcement.
James later told the Daily News he would put shoulder to the wheel in Parliament, where he stays on as MP, and in a unified party. He dismissed speculation in the aftermath of the election announcement as nonsense.
While Maimane emphasised party unity – “Whether or not you voted for me, let us unite today behind our shared values,” he told delegates – there was no mention of James.
Instead, Maimane appeared to issue a warning to the DA’s so-called black caucus, even if he did not mention by name Makashule Gana, the unsuccessful party chairman contestant closely linked to this group.
“There is no room in this party for those who seek to divide, or those who mobilise on race,” Maimane said, after describing the leadership contestation and tensions as “healthy” engagement in “robust debate”.
Earlier, former DA leader Tony Leon told congress a new leader must “adopt the strategy and tactics to move the movement further”, and to offer help to taxpayers under siege, and businesses.
“He must honour the past, but he must not live in the past,” said Leon, who spearheaded the first growth spurt of the DA’s predecessor, the Democratic Party, from 1.7 percent polling support in 1994.
The new leader must tell the truth, said Leon, and “hoist aloft Nelson Mandela’s banner of a non-racial South Africa”.
Maimane’s decision, already made, to stay on as DA parliamentary leader will placate those in the party deeply opposed to Zille’s decision to be in government, first as Cape Town mayor after her election to the top party post in May 2007, and then, two years later, as Western Cape premier.
However, Maimane yesterday admitted there’s simply not yet been any thought given to a possible rejig of his MPs’ portfolios. Merging the teams of national and parliamentary leader is another priority in his in-tray.
However, one decision already made is that with the weekend DA congress eyes firmly on the 2016 local government elections, Maimane will be taking on fundraising to ensure the party has the money for electioneering. “I want to get my hands fully dirty on this issue,” he said.
HELEN Zille is no longer the leader of South Africa’s largest opposition party, the DA, but she irrevocably stamped her influence on the party she led for the past eight years.
The DA’s first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, must now pick up the ball. And he has insisted he has his “own story to tell”. But he will do so with the “Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity” values charter now in the DA constitution, a legacy of Zille’s.
That was said publicly, and in many circles privately, with great enthusiasm.
A values charter may sound like an abstraction, but it goes to the heart of the DA’s future direction, including its singleminded focus on garnering more voting support.
Adopting the charter as part of the DA constitution was a “strategic” decision to explain the DA to South Africans and thus own the tool to push up voting support. No bones were made about this.
Contestation around the value of families in the charter became the proxy war for the battle between the different groupings in the DA.
It was former DA chairman Wilmot James, the unsuccessful leadership contestant, who in the interest of liberal individual rights and freedoms brought amendments: “resilient” rather than strong individuals, and the deletion of linking strong individuals to strong families and, secondly, strong families to successful nations, due to a lack of scientific evidence.
Holding sway, however, was the view that these sentiments were carefully and widely held and did not amount to any ”Republican Tea Party” sentiments, as all types of family structures were covered, from the extended family, gay families and single parent families.
James’s defeat in this contest of ideas and ideological principles foreshadowed his defeat in the contest for the top party leadership post.
The winner was determination to grow the DA at the hustings. That was front, back and centre of Zille’s tenure, which saw votes just more than double to a sliver over four million in the 2014 elections. And it was in the fore of the weekend DA federal congress.
Three-quarters of the 1 425 congress delegates, or 1 013, are elected public representatives from councils, provincial legislatures and Parliament.
A key political consideration for them must be what and who will keep them in their jobs. The decision came down for the values charter and for Maimane, the DA parliamentary leader.
The populist Maimane took up the promise of growing the party in his 20-minute address to delegates: “We must be able to say one day there is a DA president”.
And with roughly a year to go before the 2016 municipal poll, Maimane already has promised to get his “hands fully dirty” to ensure there was enough money in the coffers.
And in his first words as leader he also tackled the party’s blind spot – race.
“If you do not see I’m black, then you don’t see me at all,” he said, emphasising the need for a non-racial South Africa, before moving on to the sentiments of opportunity and fairness the DA appears much more comfortable with.
According to the values charter, fairness, accountability and opportunity are values that cut across race, class, gender and age. Maimane fits right into that narrative. Raised by working class parents in Soweto, the 34-year-old parttime preacher skyrocketed into the DA top ranks since joining the opposition in 2009.
His ability to catch votes – he increased DA support in Gauteng in the 2011 local government elections – has been a key consideration at congress.
Should Maimane fail to deliver on expectations of greater voting support and clinching not only Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, but also Tshwane and maybe another metro, the DA for the first time in eight years would have a serious miscalculation.
Yesterday he said he was still dealing with becoming the party leader, never mind planning an exit strategy already.
Maimane can count on the slick blue party machinery. He can rely on his oratory skill, charm and populist appeal. Known as a listener and described as someone who has never dropped the ball, Maimane also can draw on those strengths. But politics as a party leader and elections are brutal. The ANC, which already has called him a “rented native” and Zille’s lackey, will not give him an easy time.
The DA’s claim of delivering better where it governs is contested by the ANC, with rival statistics in the acrimonious verbal sparring in Parliamentary debates.
Managing a parliamentary caucus – Maimane stays on as DA parliamentary leader – and managing a party with a diversity of ambitions, views and aims arising in various towns and dorpies in nine provinces are very different.
The DA congress has shown not everyone is happy with the route the party is taking. There are rifts to heal, not only in Parliament, but also across the provinces.
Much will depend on the team Maimane surrounds himself with, and how he manages that team. But his message within hours of being elected leader was that he was his own man.
Merten is the Independent Group’s senior political correspondent.