Defeat from the jaws of victory
Flag-burning and capital-moving are not among the DA and the IFP’S wisest moves
Thursday. With 20 days to go until voting day, the Democratic Alliance appears to — once more — be dead set on snatching defeat (electorally speaking) from the jaws of victory.
Perhaps not victory, but at least a bigger slice of the vote than in 2019 — and a hope in hell of getting itself and the Multi-party Charter for South Africa over the line on 29 May.
Things were going rather swimmingly with the plan to “rescue” South Africa until John Steenhuisen turned Burna Boy and set fire to the national flag — live and direct — in the party’s advert for the 29 May national and provincial elections.
One minute, Steenhuisen is talking about taking over the country in conjunction with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the rest of the moneyshot parties — asking us to vote for them — the next he’s setting fire to our beloved red, white, blue, green, black and yellow.
Not the way most people would attempt to bring on board new voters — or to convince South Africans that the party believes in or supports the post-apartheid project.
Most political leaders would want to be seen saluting the flag — or at least waving one — but not our man, who decided burning the flag would provide better optics, and figures on voting day.
Needless to say, whatever mileage the DA had made from the ANC’S mistakes — and they are many —
went out the window the minute John set fire to the flag, along with any chance he had of being president of anywhere but Orania.
One wonders who John and Helen Zille ran the advert past before it was flighted — if anybody? Steve Hofmeyr? Elon Musk?
Did they actually pay somebody to create this 33-second voter-alienating monstrosity (one sincerely hopes not) or was this something they cooked up together in Helen’s home studio, all self-congratulatory sniggers and giggles as they hit send?
The good people at the Social Research Foundation must have been choking on their sushi and Berliner Weisse when they saw all
their hard work go up in flames the other night along with the flag.
Likewise the funders of the moonshot coalition.
Unless, of course, driving away right-minded South Africans was the intention — and not the unintended consequence — of the DA advert, and that it was aimed instead at bringing back the rightwing voters it lost to the Freedom Front Plus in 2019 and 2021.
Both John and Helen have — unsurprisingly — doubled down and defended the advert, rather than apologising for a lapse in judgement and recalling the thing, so maybe that is their game.
Either way, it’s not the way to number the numbers at national level — or anywhere else — and probably the dumbest move the party has made since it threw Mmusi Maimane in the bus when its 2019 “experiment” failed to gain immediate traction.
The DA isn’t alone in playing with electoral kryptonite.
Granting Ulundi capital status is back on the IFP’S agenda — 20 years after the issue cost the party control of Kwazulu-natal — now that voting day is within sight.
For a while, the IFP had been sounding sensible — plausible, even, once one got past the death penalty stuff — with its ideas about how it would play a role in governing Kwazulu-natal, and the country, along with the DA.
Until they played the Ulundi card. Again.
The stance that the legislature and government headquarters be moved back to the old Kwazulu legislative assembly buildings appears to have been conveniently omitted from the IFP’S national and provincial manifestos.
However, it is among the party’s election priorities, should it get into government.
Regional leaders, including Ulundi mayor Wilson Ntshangase, are drumming up support among “ideologically compatible” business people to invest in the area and the wave of opportunities they are promising.
The IFP national and provincial leadership is talking the same language — partially in response to the issue having been resurrected by Actionsa provincial leader Zwakele Mncwango last November — and by King Misuzulu ka Zwelithini.
There appears to be little concern about the cost — each legislature session racked up a R50 million subsistence and transport bill back in 2003 — or the impact on the regional economy of the Midlands.
The business community is enraged, the DA is nervous and a war looms with the civil service should the plan ever materialise and government headquarters be moved to Ulundi.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but this does not appear to be a solid move if the IFP wants to win over the province’s taxpayers — or anybody living south of the Tugela River — let alone taking back Kwazulunatal from the ANC.
Was this something they cooked up together in Helen’s home studio, all self-congratulatory sniggers and giggles?