Meet the ‘Divisive Alliance’
It’s a thin line between being righteous and self-righteous. And the Democratic Alliance charged over it this week like a starlet sprinting towards a reality TV slot.
The opposition party’s local government election posters for its Kwazulu-natal campaign — The ANC called you racists; The DA calls you heroes — started being erected in Phoenix on Monday.
We are told the township was chosen because the party was rolling out its messaging from north to south, and soon the posters would pepper the remainder of the ethekwini area.
But it is in Phoenix where 36, mostly black, people were killed, allegedly at the hands of a small group of vigilante Indian residents, during the devastating July riots. There were also a small number of Indian residents killed, allegedly at the hands of black looters. But death hurts just the same, irrespective of pigmentation.
By Wednesday, unrepentant DA leader John Steenhuisen and equally unrepentant provincial campaign leader Dean Macpherson were still defending the poster decision, swatting away talk of the message being insensitive and divisive.
The DA’S messaging was not the result of a synapse misfiring in the brain of a junior member. It was a calculated decision taken by at least one senior member and the presumed reaction would have been chewed over.
The standard South African rhetoric of embracing the ideals of nonracialism is a necessity, given the country’s brutal past. But for once it would be refreshing if we encountered political parties that actually walked the talk, instead of using race as a battering ram to galvanise votes — and then deny doing exactly that.
The DA is clearly exploiting the schism between the ANC and the Indian population, a gap that widened after the civil unrest. What we are now seeing is a political gutter fight; one that a more emotionally mature leader would have avoided.
But we also need to look at the electoral facts. The DA is not trying to win ethekwini metro, nor is it gunning for the hearts and minds of the majority black population. It knows that would be futile.
Instead, it is seeking to win a large enough voter share, probably targeting more than 30% (it achieved 27% in 2016) in the event that a coalition government is on the cards.
The DA will no doubt realise that the divisive messaging was unnecessary, because the ANC has probably done a good enough job all by itself to alienate minority voters. What the posters are likely to do is to alienate the “on the fence” black voters, a demographic that former leaders in the province sweated blood to lure.
Less than an hour after this editorial had been penned, Macpherson issued a statement saying the posters were being removed. “The DA is a party of nonracialism and it was never my intention to cause any other perception,” he wrote.
Many would believe otherwise.