Liverpool probably stood a greater chance of beating the rampant Manchester City on Saturday than Mpho Phalatse does on Sunday in her bid to oust John Steenhuisen as DA leader.
Yet we all know what happened at Etihad Stadium around lunchtime on Saturday.
Were Phalatse — the recently ousted Johannesburg mayor — to emerge at the DA’s Federal Congress as the new party leader, hers would be the most stunning victory by a political underdog in recent history.
But miracles seldom happen in politics.
Whatever the outcome of the voting by DA delegates, however, Phalatse has given the country’s second biggest party some serious food for thought as it prepares to contest what some of its leaders are describing as a historic general election next year.
First things first: wasn’t it refreshing to follow a political party election in which candidates are allowed to publicly present their campaign platforms to delegates — letting both the delegates and the public know what voting for them would mean for the party and the country?
One hopes even the DA’s rival in Luthuli House learnt a thing or two about running a meaningful leadership contest.
Back to Phalatse and her campaign. In her speech to delegates yesterday, the former mayor painted a picture of a DA facing stark choices — it could consolidate its current electoral base of just under 20% and then hope the ANC declined sharply enough for smaller parties to be able to form a coalition government on their own; or it could “be bold” and try to grow into a much bigger party that could tackle the ruling party head on.
Like Steenhuisen and, presumably, all DA leaders, she believes 2024 will be a game changer as “the majority” of South Africans are looking for an alternative to the ruling party.
But whereas the dominant view within the DA since the 2019 elections seems to have been that the party can achieve its objective by winning back its lost constituencies and consolidating its traditional base, Phalatse believes the mood in the country makes it ripe for the DA to aggressively go after the ANC’s disgruntled traditional constituencies.
In her view, the one stumbling block between the DA and the Union Buildings next year is what she termed the trust deficit between the party and the majority of voters.
In her view, the one stumbling block between the DA and the Union Buildings next year is what she termed the trust deficit between the party and the majority of voters.
By this one assumes she is talking about the perennial accusation that the DA is too white to gain the trust and confidence of the black majority in a country only relatively recently released from apartheid.
Presumably she, as a black woman doctor with a modest record as Johannesburg executive mayor, stands a better chance of winning the trust of the majority for the DA than does Steenhuisen.
The problem with that line of reasoning, however, is that the DA has gone down that path before with little success; indeed it bled some voters to the FF+.
Whatever many may think of Steenhuisen as a leader, what counts hugely in his favour is that the party seems to have stabilised since he took over following the 2019 upset.
He claimed as much yesterday when he told party delegates: “We have fixed the DA, now it is time to fix and lead South Africa.”
But are Steenhuisen and the DA ready to fix the country? Are they — to borrow from a famous ANC document published ahead of the 1994 elections — ready to govern, nationally?
Obviously they are unlikely to amass enough votes to govern nationally on their own — regardless of whether the national leader is Steenhuisen or Phalatse.
Judging by what Steenhuisen has been saying, the DA’s best-case scenario would be for the party and other opposition parties — bar Julius Malema’s EFF — to grow their share of electoral support while the ANC shrinks to less than 40%.
This would give them a chance to form a coalition government without needing either the ANC or the EFF.
Judging by what Steenhuisen has been saying, the DA’s best-case scenario would be for the party and other opposition parties — bar Julius Malema’s EFF — to grow their share of electoral support while the ANC shrinks to less than 40%
But what if Steenhuisen can only staunch the erosion of the DA’s current base without growing it substantially?
What if the ANC’s decline does not directly translate into growth for the DA but leads to the mushrooming of more smaller parties that would make formation of a stable national coalition government as unlikely as has been the case in some of the metros?
There is a school of thought that says the most stable coalition government after next year’s elections would be the one made up of the two biggest parties — the ANC and the DA.
But it is also possible, depending on the outcome, for the ANC to form a pact with the EFF.
Steenhuisen describes this scenario as a nightmare for the country. Does the possibility of an ANC-EFF government scare him enough to make him willing to seek a partnership with the ANC?
Would the ANC want to go to bed with the DA, especially considering that some of its leaders see the DA as representative of the country’s apartheid past?
Assuming that Phalatse will not be the one closing the federal congress, these are the questions we expect Steenhuisen to answer in his speech this afternoon.
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