Democratic Alliance (DA) Federal Leader, John Steenhuisen. Picture: Oupa Mokoena / Independent Newspapers
In an opera of fatalistic speeches, the Democratic Alliance has cemented its role as the yapping dog of politics who has no intention of leading it.
With content that only speaks to a very narrow section of the electorate and delivering it like the party is under siege, the DA appears to have given up on its multi-party charter idea and on any attempt to expand its political reach beyond the Western Cape.
With a growing sense that even the Western Cape is not a certainty for the party, some very serious back-room thinking is required to save the DA from what now looks like a catastrophe unfolding.
Perhaps its only redeeming decision will be to seek a collation with the ANC after the elections, to secure jobs for its exasperated politicians.
South Africa’s new generation of first- and second-time voters developed their political awareness during the chaos of the Zuma years and the emergence of a radical EFF.
They did not have the calmness of a Mandela as the focus of their politics. Most of these voters were born into the lingering degradation of poverty in a free South Africa.
Their political sense-making did not come from the centre or right of our politics. It was the left that spoke sense to them. They were the foot soldiers of the #FeesMustFall movement and the RET ideas.
At the same time, their suburban contemporaries either saw a culture of privilege at risk of loss or a country with ongoing injustice towards poor people.
The numbers, however, favoured the left. It is to our credit that the majority of South Africa’s youth have a social justice awareness and are poised to bring their votes out in support of sense-making justice politics.
The DA doesn’t get that. It is still stuck in trying to convince these new voters that its insular view of a very privileged world is the right one, ignoring how the world shifted since the #OccupyWallStreet and #FeesMustFall movements, the arrival of the EFF, the Bernie Madoff story and more recently, the Palestinian issue.
Zuma’s corruption story does not surprise them. It fits the Madoff narrative in their minds. These new young voters are looking for new leaders who recognise the sins of apartheid, the cringing privilege, the disaster of twenty wasted years, have no desire for neo-apartheid and can smell it a mile off. They are not obsessed with a party. They want leadership with a justice-focused cause they can align with.
The ANC, likewise, is struggling to have its campaign take off. With glaring inefficiencies and a chaotic campaign office led by a man with future presidential ambitions, the youth vote has seen right through to the end of that play, and they are not buying the ticket.
Zuma is taking his fight with the ANC to its front door and the ANC has retreated in fear. The former president is a far superior populist performer, and the ANC has no one who can match his role on stage as a singing victim. Thus they postponed his obvious expulsion from the party until after the election.
The ANC itself is unsure which way the election dice will fall for them. Hedging their bets is their only available strategy. A centre-right coalition for the ANC is its most obvious choice. This would make it seek out parties in the multi-party charter group. Such a decision would greatly increase its unpopularity among the radicalised masses and provide MK and the EFF with jet fuel for the 2026 municipal elections.
It is inconceivable that two parties like the DA and the ANC could read the mood in the country so wrong at such a critical time. The one spewing their party’s fears and anger onto the electorate and the other fearfully muddling around with no new message for the voters. Both have missed what we need most at this time: Leadership.
* Lorenzo A. Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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