MMUSI’S BLACK WEDNESDAY
● DA left in limbo after leader and federal chairperson resign ● Maimane says he was being undermined and de-campaigned from within the divided party
THE shock resignations of DA leader Mmusi Maimane and federal chairperson Athol Trollip, inset, has left the official opposition scrambling to find a new leader today.
Some of the provincial leaders still back Maimane after his resignation yesterday.
Jane Sithole of Mpumalanga and Jacques Smalle of Limpopo said Maimane was committed to building the DA.
The party was left leaderless yesterday after Maimane rejected pleas from members of the FedEx for him to stay at the helm of the DA, saying he was being undermined and de-campaigned from within the divided party.
DA federal council chairperson Helen Zille said the party was left in limbo by the dramatic resignations because they left no one to take over the reins of the party, which had been engulfed in a bruising factional battle over its ideology and policies of redress.
“Our constitution makes provision for the fact that, if the leader departs in unforeseen circumstances, the party chairperson takes over until a new leader can be elected. This is a rather unusual situation because both the leader and the chairperson have taken individual decisions at the same time,” Zille said.
She said the party’s FedEx did not select Maimane’s replacement because they did not want to violate the party’s constitution.
“We are taking legal advice as to what the right path forward is constitutionally, and tomorrow (today) we will convene a federal executive by teleconference to discuss that legal advice and chart the way forward,” Zille said.
Maimane and Trollip’s resignations have brought to three the number of senior members of the party who vacated their positions after Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba announced his resignation and termination of his DA membership, on Monday.
Addressing the media after the marathon FedEx meeting, which lasted into the evening at the party’s Bruma headquarters, east of Johannesburg, Maimane said there had been a concerted campaign within the party to undermine his leadership by those who did not share his vision.
“They don’t share the vision for the party and the direction it was taking. There have been several months of a consistent and co-ordinated attack on me and my leadership to ensure this project fails, or I fail,” Maimane said.
Maimane said this included anonymous media leaks that were aimed at muddying his name and integrity, including the scandal relating to his Cape Town house and the car he used, which was donated to the DA by Steinhoff.
“This cowardly behaviour has put my wife and my kids in great danger as I watched, often in disgust, the pictures of our home being published in the media,” he said.
He said he did not believe the DA was well placed to take the country forward, echoing Mashaba’s statements that the party was dominated by people who did not believe in redress.
“Perhaps the DA is not the best vehicle suited to take forward the vision of building one South Africa for all, and therefore it is with great sadness that in order to continue this fight for the vision I strongly believe for the country I so dearly love, I will today step down as leader of the DA,” he said. Although they were left disappointed, some DA provincial leaders said they were satisfied that Maimane would remain a party activist, including leading the parliamentary caucus.
Sithole said: “It is a sad day, but I think it is his democratic right. At least he will still be working towards his vision of building one South Africa for all.”
He said that during the federal council meeting yesterday, Maimane never mentioned he was leaving his position.
Smalle said he did not think the party’s support would dwindle because of Maimane’s resignation.
“Mmusi is still part of the DA, still a member of Parliament, is still going to be caucus leader in Parliament.
“You need to understand that his character has been affected negatively by other individuals, so it is very difficult for him to go out there in the public when there are so many issues against his name,” said Smalle.
Smalle was among a group of provincial leaders who a few weeks ago backed Maimane. The other leaders were John Moodey in Gauteng, Zwakele Mncwango in KwaZulu-Natal, and Patricia Kopane in the Free State.
The other leaders were not available for comment last night.
MMUSI Maimane’s four years of leadership of the DA have not been without controversy and drama, which led to the end of his leadership career yesterday.
His election on May 10, 2015, as successor to Helen Zille, whose recent election as the party’s federal chairperson sparked more controversy and fallout, was a historical moment as he became the first black person to lead the party.
He was seen as South Africa’s Barack Obama, who in 2009 became the first black president of the US, and both leaders were younger than their predecessors.
So active was Maimane in fighting corruption that he even had former president Jacob Zuma acknowledge that through the DA, “some people who could not pronounce Nkandla have now learnt (to pronounce) Nkandla”.
In May 21, almost a year before he took over the main opposition party, Maimane visited Zuma’s Nkandla homestead to shoot a video, which was then used to campaign for the 2014 general elections.
Days before he was elected, Maimane was among leaders accused of using women for sexual enjoyment, but that scandal died down.
His popularity and campaign for 2016 local government elections saw the DA governing three more metros – Tshwane, Joburg and Nelson Mandela Bay – through multiparty coalitions.
His relationship with Zille, who was the Western Cape premier at the time, started to crumble in 2017 when he slammed his predecessor for praising colonialism. Maimane said Zille’s views on colonialism, which she expressed in a controversial tweet, were in breach of the pact that the DA had signed in 1994 to unify all the country’s racial groups.
After Zille had refused to apologise for her colonialism comment, Maimane announced her suspension from the party leadership but kept her on as Western Cape premier. He also declared that he and Zille held fundamentally different attitudes about the mission of the DA.
Looking ahead to the 2019 general elections, Maimane told Parliament in 2017 that corruption within the ANC would help the DA win the 2019 general elections, a mission that was never accomplished.
At the beginning of 2017, he travelled to Israel in defiance of Zuma who had called for South Africans to refrain from travelling there.
Last year, he lost one of the metros when Athol Trollip was removed as the DA mayor of the Nelson Mandela Bay through a vote of no confidence by the EFF, UDM and ANC.
He had a fallout with Patricia de Lille after she was removed as Cape Town mayor in May last year.
Late last year, it was reported that Maimane had declined a request to avail himself to be premier of the Western Cape, a position that was later given to Alan Winde.
Then came a scandal last month that Maimane had been driving a Toyota Fortuner donated by former Steinhoff chief executive officer Markus Jooste. It was also reported that he and his family had been living in a R4 million house belonging to a
Durban businessman. He was cleared by an internal party probe of any wrongdoing.
In March, he trended on social media after he mistakenly said “44 out of 10 South Africans are without jobs”. It is said that after taking a sip of water, he corrected himself by saying he meant “40% of South Africa’s households do not have a single source of income”.
His troubles started when Institute of Race Relations analyst Hermann Pretorius called for Maimane to step down and be replaced by Winde. Pretorius had written a column accusing Maimane of having been responsible for a drop in party support during the general elections. But various provincial leaders defended his leadership.
After Zille had announced that she would contest the position of federal council chairperson, it became clear that Maimane was in trouble.