Miracle if Maimane survives in wake of damning calculated leaks “

TWO of the country’s prominent political analysts believe that nothing can save Mmusi Maimane from the axe. He has been significantly weakened by a series of scandals in the past few weeks.

The analysts believe that even pre-empting his opponents – who are believed to be hitting him with calculated leaks – by coming out clean on potential future scandals, cannot save him.

This comes as some provincial leaders of the DA who are considered to be part of the so-called black caucus are closing ranks around Maimane whose job has already been speculated as going to Alan Winde, Premier of the Western Cape, by the Institute of Race Relations. Helen Zille recently joined the IRR think tank.

Political analyst Xolani Dube from the Durban-based Xubera Institute, said the way the party’s national leader was tainted, appears as if he had become the “Jacob Zuma of the DA”.

He said scandals of leaders were carefully archived and only leaked when they were being pushed out of office.

Dube stressed that the scandals were heavily stacked against him and surviving them would be a miracle.

“All the cards are against him here… the man is not going to survive… he is gone, the man is gone. Look, for these guys, there are a lot of skeletons in the closet, they are being archived and at the right time they are used to get rid of them,” Dube told Independent Media yesterday.

He said one of the things that had made Maimane a pariah with some of the party’s core voters was his taking on President Cyril Ramaphosa (over the R500 000 Bosasa donation) as the president was a darling of the ruling elite “which controls everything”.

Another Durban-based Independent political analyst, Thabani Khumalo, said Maimane could only be saved by resigning from his position as party leader and nothing else.

He said the major undoing for Maimane was that he presented himself as an anti-corruption crusader so much that people would find it hard to forgive him for alleged corrupt deeds. “Whether he discloses potential future scandals or not in order to disarm his opponents and save his job, it will not work.

“The only thing he can do is to disclose them and resign. Since he is associated with ethical leadership, it will be hard for him. The only thing he can do is to apologise and leave,” Khumalo said.

Khumalo attributed the unravelling of Maimane’s term in office as DA leader to an all-or-nothing focus on increasing membership.

He said the party ended up being a mass-based party instead of focusing on minorities and urban and educated blacks.

The only thing Maimane can do is to apologise

and leave