Last Sunday Helen Zille tweeted that she (and presumably the DA that she runs) had come around to the idea that there is no good ANC around which one can coalesce.
Why am I the one discussing this you may ask? The answer is simple. SA needs an alternative to the ANC and how each party in the spectrum positions itself in respect of the ANC and multiparty coalitions should be ventilated as a matter of great public interest.
This is what the tweet said:
“I have to be honest and admit that, until recently, I thought there were some decent people left in the ANC with whom we might, one day, be able to negotiate a new govt. That hope is now well and truly dashed. They are all, indeed, the African National Criminals.”
The implication of this message is that the DA had been, before this tweet, pursuing a strategy of coalition with a grouping within the ANC. What makes this astonishing is its direct contradiction of the public assurances provided to the electorate in the 2021 local government elections.
Readers may recall a Sunday Times article which quoted DA leader John Steenhuisen’s view that the DA would defend President Cyril Ramaphosa. Shortly afterwards, an audio file emerged in which Zille was quoted as saying that the DA was nothing more than a 20% party and the future lay in coalition and forcing reforms within the ANC. Both events caused sufficient electoral disruption within the DA’s core base that Steenhuisen scrambled to affirm that they would never work with the ANC.
What Zille’s tweet does is expose that clarification as a fraud to assuage voters presumably in need of paternalistic protection from this grand plan with the ANC that is too important for them to understand. If anyone thinks I place too much reliance on a single tweet, one can cross-reference Zille’s remarks at a BizNews conference or that audio recording in which the exact same sentiment was expressed.
The implication of that tweet doesn’t end there because it reveals that the DA has nothing to offer SA. As demonstrated, its previous plan (if we are being generous enough to call it that) was to hold out and see what happens with the ANC. It has now denounced this plan, through Zille’s tweet, only to find itself blissfully unaware of its occupation of a strategic Bermuda Triangle.
The DA cannot win votes away from the ANC because of the complete collapse of its support in black communities across SA, accelerated by its newfound blindness to colour and deafness to tone. If the DA cannot align with the ANC and cannot win support away from the ANC, it is rendered meaningless in the South African landscape.
All of this makes the DA as useful as a concrete parachute
To make matters worse, the DA has walked away from coalition in Nelson Mandela Bay after not showing up to vote for a motion of no confidence in a mayor who has presided over what is about to become our country’s greatest water crisis. This mayor is from the ANC and represents a coalition including the ANC and EFF — both of which the DA publicly campaigns against. While the DA tendered reasons for collapsing talks, the truth is they do not want complex, messy coalition politics with a looming service delivery crisis. Fair enough, who does? But this is the reality of South African politics, a certainty like death and taxes, and pronouncing yourself unavailable to lead in a time of great crisis is a public pronouncement of your unsuitability for the future of South African politics.
All of this makes the DA as useful as a concrete parachute. They are unwilling to align with parties to govern complex coalitions in the interests of South Africans, unable to grow their support by winning votes away from the ANC and now, seemingly, unavailable to prop up an ANC government in 2024 to exact reforms from “the moderates” in the ANC. All of this while voters are, completely and understandably, baffled.
Make no mistake, I have an agenda. ActionSA has already benefited considerably from the DA’s strategic confusion, and we stand to benefit even more. My declared agenda doesn’t make what I have said any less accurate.
Ultimately, the future of SA is with the ANC in opposition. Their decline is terminal and the notion that the ANC must go is now, perhaps, the most accepted political idea in the country (even among ANC supporters who voice their dissent through staying away).
It therefore matters a great deal how parties define themselves in terms of the honesty and clarity with which they relate to the ANC, and their availability for the coalitions of the future. Parties cannot lie and deceive South Africans and not face the electoral consequences for saying one thing in an election while practising another.
ActionSA makes it abundantly clear that we will never work with the ANC. We have done so from day one, and we will do so into the future because we maintain that you cannot solve the problem by partnering its creator. It is also not enough to say that we will not be partners with the ANC. ActionSA commits to actively pursue the removal of the ANC, opposing any scenario like Nelson Mandela Bay where the ANC is now propped up by the DA.
We avail ourselves pragmatically for any coalition that can serve to unseat the ANC, but recognise that national and provincial contexts require greater ideological alignment than local government. In the coming months we will complete an assessment of which parties we are willing to collaborate with.
On this we will be open, unambiguous, and willing to be held to our word without fear of contradiction.
• Mashaba is ActionSA president
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