Lockdown statement: DA leader grilled
Party brass unhappy at ‘opposition to extension’
● DA top brass have grilled interim leader John Steenhuisen over his “clumsy” messaging suggesting that the official opposition party opposed extending the Covid-19 lockdown.
The Sunday Times has learnt that Steenhuisen faced a barrage of questions from the party’s federal executive (fedex) over the statement he issued shortly after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the extension of the lockdown last Thursday. Those who questioned Steenhuisen felt that the DA had failed to read the mood in the country by expressing opposition to Ramaphosa's announcement.
This was the same criticism levelled against former leader Mmusi Maimane just before he left the party, as some DA leaders, including Steenhuisen, accused him of having focused too much on bashing Ramaphosa’s ANC.
DA insiders said that during a meeting of the fedex last Saturday, Steenhuisen apparently conceded that the statement’s headline — “A lockdown extension will create an economic disaster” — was not well phrased. Steenhuisen told the Sunday Times he stood by the statement.
Members of the fedex are said to have raised concerns that the statement suggested that rescuing the economy was more of a priority than preserving lives.
A fedex member told the Sunday Times that “unhappiness” about the statement had been articulated, in particular the headline, “which became the focal point”.
“In all fairness, he did say it was unfortunate. There was a recognition that it was not the right call at that time. We do have an institutional culture of responding instantly to announcements by the president, which did not serve us well in this instance,” the member said.
A member of the DA’s shadow cabinet said they were briefed about the meeting with Steenhuisen but it was never made explicit that the party was no longer 100% in support of the lockdown.
“It was a completely wrong call to make and fedex, from what I can tell, expressed itself … the problem is that he has surrounded himself with his campaign team,” said the DA insider, referring to Steenhuisen’s bid for the top job of the party.
Some in the party say the response to the Covid19 crisis has been incorrectly guided by Steenhuisen’s political team, who want to keep his momentum going in the run-up to the federal congress, originally set for June.
The party has now taken a provisional decision to host the congress in October. Steenhuisen, Gauteng leader John Moodey and KwaZulu-Natal MPL Mbali Ntuli have all raised their hands for the top job.
Several DA MPs also cautioned that aggressive opposition to the government’s plan — in instances where it was not necessary to take that position — would lead to the party’s detriment at the polls next year. The party haemorrhaged around 400,000 votes during last year’s general election.
Steenhuisen told the Sunday Times the position articulated in the statement had been vindicated.
“The statement went through the DA workstream on lockdown as well as the shadow cabinet like all other Covid-19-related communication — it was not a unilateral decision but reached after consultation and consensus. The approach in the statement talking about lives and livelihoods and ‘backlash’ has since been vindicated in the mainstream realisation that we need to protect our citizens’ lives from the twin threat of the spread of the virus and grinding economic depression,” Steenhuisen said.
He also disputed claims that his strategy was being penned by his campaign team.
“I suspended my campaign for the leadership at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis and publicly announced this,” he said.
“I have been working only with the extended shadow cabinet, the shadow cabinet subcommittee on Covid-19, the national management committee and the federal executive. Your assertion around the campaign team, which has not met, is not founded in fact.”