Steenhuisen denies edge in leadership race
● The DA federal executive’s recommendation that the party hold a virtual federal congress in October to elect new leaders can only be reversed by a two-thirds majority of the party’s federal council.
This is according to DA interim leader John Steenhuisen, who told the Sunday Times that the recommendation would be tabled at the federal council meeting in July.
The federal executive’s decision to go ahead with the congress on October 31 has been criticised by some within the party, who say a virtual congress will favour Steenhuisen’s ambition to replace Mmusi Maimane as full-time party leader.
But Steenhuisen rejected such claims, saying the October congress could go either way.
“The federal council decision [taken last year] was that we would have a federal congress this year, and the fedex [federal executive] has no power to overturn that, so fedex has made a recommendation to hold a virtual conference and set up how we’d do that to ensure that everyone who could participate can participate.
“That goes as a recommendation to federal council in July, saying that there’s a twothirds resolution that we’ll hold a special conference this year, two-thirds from federal council [from last year] and this is how we intend to give effect to it, and federal council must say yes or no.
“But I don’t see how federal council would not allow this to take place and I think we should bear in mind that if the conference were to not take place this year there’s going to have to be a two-thirds decision to reverse that decision not to have a conference at federal council,” Steenhuisen said.
The Sunday Times has learnt that Steenhuisen was questioned by members of the party’s parliamentary caucus this week about the decision to hold the congress in the next five months.
“Basically, people were trying to get a sense of why there is this big rush to forge ahead with this congress given the current conditions. It is going to be close to impossible to have everyone participate — you are going to be dealing with more than a thousand people. It is going to be a circus,” one DA MP said.
The same matter made it to the federal executive last week, where members raised concerns about the congress going ahead via video conference.
Those in favour of the congress taking place argued that the party would have to explain to voters why they have not elected a leader in two years. The group also argued that the person who would lead next year’s local government election campaign would have to do so with a mandate from the party, given the decisions which would have to be made around matters such as coalition governments.
The rush to install a new leader in an early congress follows the abrupt exit of Maimane in October last year alongside the federal executive chair, Athol Trollip. Trollip resigned from the position but remains in the party. According to the party’s constitution, he would have served as interim leader.
All candidates vying for the top job, including Steenhuisen, Gauteng leader John Moodey and KwaZulu-Natal MPL Mbali Ntuli, suspended their campaigns at the onset of the Covid crisis. This leaves all candidates with just under five months to convince delegates to vote for them.
Steenhuisen said this would not be an issue as their campaigns were already under way. “Well, I’m sure that the ground rules will be set out very clearly and it will be left to the candidates’ discretion on how they choose to campaign. But I think that the party will facilitate through candidate debates and so on. But certainly the three leadership campaigns were pretty well developed before we went into the lockdown,” he said.
Steenhuisen rubbished the view that he had an unfair advantage over other candidates given his position as the party’s chief communicator.
“Incumbency can be an advantage but it can also be a disadvantage. Just ask George Bush — he will tell you when he lost to Clinton. Being an incumbent does not guarantee you election, and if you handle yourself badly things don’t work out well. It can be a huge downside as well,” Steenhuisen said.
“There has to be a leader of the party. I can’t stop leading the party just because some people may see it as an unfair advantage. I am the incumbent as the interim leader and I have a job to do and I am doing it. Whether that is an advantage or not remains to be seen.”
Steenhuisen added that it was very difficult to run as a change candidate “if you are an incumbent”.