DA’S ‘laboratory’
Moodey, like Maimane, found it hard to forgive Zille’s tweets on colonialism and apartheid, and he believed racism had raised its head in some quarters of the party before he quit in September last year.
The party has yet to deliver a ruling on Zille’s tweets, though its federal legal commission has completed its investigation and begun hearings with her on the matter.
Steenhuisen has refused to comment on Leon’s remarks, saying expecting him to would be akin to asking President Cyril Ramaphosa to react to everything Jacob Zuma says.
“I don’t feel it necessary to comment on the views of private citizens, whether they are former leaders or not. Mr Leon holds no official position in the DA,” he said, adding that he found the manufactured outrage around it “nauseating”.
However, a senior MP begrudged Leon, as a former leader well aware of the fault lines in the party, for tripping over them. “Look, a lot of people are pissed off and with reason,” the person said. “Any sensitive and sensible person would have been a lot more circumspect.”
Another prominent DA leader said it was telling that senior members who expressed racist attitudes were not taken to task and were apparently “tolerated for their prejudice. It also makes it OK for other people to think their prejudicial views are something that we are negotiating instead of condemning.
“The fact that John has not said anything about Leon’s comments, nor does he say anything ever unless it affects white people — like in the case of Stellenbosch University — just shows that even at the top, you are not sure that the leader you have is not a racist. How can you not feel those undertones?” she asked.
The DA members said that colleagues had wanted to label many black senior members as Anc-lite or African nationalist.
“All those are trying to make us seem like we are less than, and can be lumped with the ANC. When we are together, some people just assume we are a black caucus. White people in the party invented even that term. It was never black people that called themselves that.”
Another source said their approach was to be silent and let the leadership carry out the mandate they were given in the previous congress.
“It’s very difficult to say that this is not the direction that should be taken when you are reminded that there is an 80% mandate. So I would like to allow the elected leaders to lead us through the local government elections and for us to see whether that mandate they were given translates to votes.”
Leon has explained his remarks, saying he was referring to Maimane’s relative inexperience when he was handed control of the party. Mazibuko declined to comment.
This furore comes as the party tries to claw back support it lost to the political spectrum’s right and fearing further losses in this year’s local government elections. It has left Steenhuisen little elbow room as he tries not to alienate the DA’S traditional voters or donors further, many of whom carry a torch for the likes of Zille and Leon.
At its policy conference last year, the DA broke away from the thinking of the Mazibuko era on race as a proxy for inequality.