ACTION STATIONS
Mashaba rules out faction distractions
● Former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba launched his new party yesterday, complete with a strategy to avoid the crippling factionalism that is rife in the local political landscape.
In an interview this week, Mashaba said he would hand-pick his fellow executives in the party — called ActionSA — to reduce the risk of the kind of high-level feuding that is rampant in his former political home, the DA, and in the ANC.
Under the constitution of the new party, elective congresses would choose the president and provincial leaders. The president or national leader would then be able to directly appoint people to help run the party along with the provincial leaders.
“Look at this whole nonsense of what’s happening in our country at the moment,” Mashaba said.
“Let’s use our practical example of our president [Cyril Ramaphosa] right now where he is surrounded by criminals, not out of his own choice.
“How do you think he must operate? Now, do you think I must subject myself to a system that I can already see is not working? It becomes your responsibility as a leader to surround yourself with like-minded people,” he said.
On Friday, Mashaba announced the party’s leadership structure. He will lead it as president together with fellow DA defector Michael Beaumont as national chair.
Other former DA members in the ActionSA leadership team include Funzi Ngobeni, André Coetzee, and Paul Boughey — who quit as the opposition party’s CEO following its poor showing in the 2019 elections.
Joining them will be former ANC MPs Makhosi Khoza and Vytjie Mentor, former Gauteng police commissioner Lt Gen Deliwe de Lange, former Johannesburg Metro Police chief David Tembe and former Good party member Vivien Law.
Mashaba, a self-made millionaire who ventured into politics in 2014 after being courted by the DA, said his new party would vet would-be members because he suspected rival parties were trying to plant fifth-columnists to sabotage him.
“We are not going to take chances. Our vetting has got to be thorough. If I can tell you the number of ANC people who were sent, expressing interest to join us,” said Mashaba.
“I always say to them, ‘Just become a member, sign up and become a member, but there is no position in our party and the day you want to be a councillor we will put you out in the community and the community will decide.’ ”
Asked if he was interested in trying to return as mayor of Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub and richest metro, Mashaba said he was no longer interested in the job and planned instead to be the national face of ActionSA.
“I won’t be standing as a mayor myself because … the 2.4-million people want me to focus on unseating the ANC and I can’t unseat the ANC from Johannesburg,” said Mashaba, referring to the people who participated in the “People’s Dialogue”, the initiative that led to the formation of ActionSA.
“Out of [that] engagement, the people felt ‘No, if you stand in and be the mayor of the City of Johannesburg, who is going to be the national face of the party?’ ”
He said he was confident that ActionSA would unseat the ANC in Johannesburg in the local elections next year.
Mashaba, who quit the DA in October 2019 after Helen Zille was elected federal chair, said ActionSA also felt sure it could challenge the DA’s 14-year grip on the City of Cape Town.
“I never thought we would stand a chance in Cape Town [but] I can tell you in terms of the numbers that are coming through, the likelihood of contesting in Cape Town is very high. When we contest Cape Town, we will take the DA under 50%.”