Strong leader, strong woman for a weak party
Next weekend the opposition DA meets in a virtual conference to elect a new leadership. It is 99.9% certain that interim leader John
Steenhuisen will win.
It will be a triumph for a man of rare charm and a cutting tongue who always enlivens debates. He has been an excellent chief whip for the DA in parliament.
Last Wednesday he gave what
I think is his best speech yet, in the debate on President Cyril
Ramaphosa’s economic recovery plans. He told the president his proposals would eventually sink in the swamp of ANC opposition and ignorance, and offered his help to push the reforms through.
“You are surrounded by people who are ideologically incompatible with the reforms needed to kick-start growth in our economy,” he deliciously told Ramaphosa, but, he added: “There is a way to sidestep the enemies of growth and get these reforms passed. Bring them to this house, and we will help you pass them.”
Of course this is repartee, but Steenhuisen is exceptionally good at it. Neither is he afraid.
When he still had a radio show, Eusebius McKaiser, always “difficult”, frequently had Steenhuisen on and never went easy on him.
In all of the upheaval in the DA since Mmusi Maimane led it to an ignominious result in the general election last year, Steenhuisen has been perfectly placed to replace him — the senior man in parliament and favoured by the surprise re-arrival in the DA office, as federal council chair no less, of former leader Helen Zille.
Zille returned with a clear job in mind — to rid the party of any traces of what she sees as African nationalism — using race as a measure of injury or deprivation.
She organised virtual gatherings online on new party values and policies.
New policy chief Gwen
Ngwenya was specifically briefed to reinvent the DA without any reference to colour or race.
Steenhuisen rode along while former white party executives under Maimane drifted off to form a new party with former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba.
Amid all this, however, a new voice has piped up in the DA who doesn’t entirely agree that Zille has got it all right and who doesn’t think Steenhuisen is the best possible leader.
Mbali Ntuli, a young party provincial leader in KwaZuluNatal, has challenged Steenhuisen for the leadership next weekend and in the process has given DA head office a much-needed heart attack.
Of course, their man will win, but Ntuli is not some good-looking black charmer parachuted in as leader by Zille, as Maimane was. She’s been knocking on dangerous doors for the DA in KZN for years. Her late father was a taxi boss. She identifies as a liberal. She is barely 30. She isn’t going to leave when she loses.
She should, if there is any justice in politics, become leader of the DA after Steenhuisen. But the party Zille runs has done everything possible to stop her progressing.
When Ntuli called for debates with Steenhuisen, the party shut her (and him) down. It is in the rules, it said. DA Western Cape leader Bonginkosi Madikizela supported the debate ban “120%” — the DA was not electing the president of SA but the leader of the party, so why the need for debates? The DA also has its creeps.
When Ntuli tried to hold a “town hall” in Cape Town this past week, the party stopped her again. It all sounds needlessly menacing. What is it scared of? Steenhuisen has all the benefits of even interim incumbency. Why can’t Ntuli speak to the public? In the US, political parties hold open contests for their presidential candidates. That is exactly what a party leader is in SA.
Ntuli is in every sense an asset to the DA, yet its leaders treat her like a liability, whispering “African nationalist” into the backs of their hands at every mention of her name and of many other strong black people among the DA membership. It is very disturbing.
Perhaps when he wins, Steenhuisen will have the grace to acknowledge the odds Ntuli is fighting against and the points she is trying to make. Perhaps he will have the foresight to try, whatever his personal feelings about her might be, to draw her into the leadership for the battles ahead — local government elections next year and the big one again in 2024.
These are just around the corner. Steenhuisen is good but he isn’t that good. His will be a defensive leadership, trying to claw back lost white votes. Ntuli, alongside him, could provide the vital spark the DA needs to convince people there is a decent future for them in this country, however bleak things might look now.
Ntuli alongside him could provide the vital spark the DA needs to convince people there is a future