Ramaphosa’s delegate to the Oval Office and the DA’s deep undemocratic instincts

IN the unfamiliarity of the Oval Office decorum to the visiting delegation and the practised antipathy of its principal occupant, it did not take long before DA leader John Steenhuisen, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, betrayed the secret attributes of Operation Doomsday.

All he had to do was to requite in equanimous measure US President Donald Trump’s hilarious and overplayed script of a genocide unfolding in South Africa since 1994. The leader of the DA could not constrain the infantility of his instincts, however, as undemocratic as they were virulently suggestive. And his plea to Trump was neither surprising nor novel for its shock value as it was for its inelegance.

Aunty Helen Zille, in the subterfuge of her language had already issued the threat to the ANC, whose chilling connotations were worse than its veil. Any attempt to coalesce with any ‘black’ party to form a ruling majority in parliament, will unleash her ire, resulting in the triggering of the Doomsday Option!

This option, or what in her perversion she refers to as a “Doomsday Coalition”, somewhat suggests that the depravity in the “doomsday”, is an inherent quality in the “black” or flaw in the “coalition” or both, as opposed to the content of her armageddon retribution.

This undemocratic instinct has an ominous shorthand. It distorts Abraham Lincoln’s address in Gettysburg which famously defines democracy as a government of the people by the people for the people.

In the gilded sanctum of the Oval Office, the Minister of Agriculture was enthused when pleading with Trump to redefine Lincoln’s epigram and replace it with a definition suited for a government by some people who rule on behalf of a manufactured globalist consensus.

Whenever a political party or leader that does not conform to the tenets of the Washington Consensus wins an election, they must according to South Africa’s Steenhuisen, echoing the aunty that chairs his party, be stopped.

2025 has seen a proliferation of this trend, colloquially styled the ‘French solution’, which the continent knows painfully too well. From Patrice Lumumba to Thomas Sankara, the tendency has been fairly manifested to permanently neutralise candidates that do not oblige with the bidding of the former colonisers.

The theatre for these nascent neo-fascist tendencies has moved to Europe however. The continent that prides itself for its liberal democratic values, has witnessed a disproportionate increase of undemocratic incidences.

And there have been many candidates to choose from. From Georgia to the UK, across to Germany and Romania including France, the continent portends a rich buffet from which anti-liberal democratic traits could easily manifest themselves.

In Georgia, President Salome Zourabichvilli, did not want to concede to the election victory of the Georgia Dream Party. She refused to leave office physically, called for a constitutional coup and solicited for the de-recognition of the Georgia Dream party victory, all because they do not want to start another war with Russia. Despite enormous support from the Brussels bureaucracy, the will of the Georgian people prevailed.

Nigel Farage is a particular brand of politician, very much in the moment and seldom willing to be interrupted by scripted soundbites. He is staunchly British First! It did not take much to draw false equivalence between his British First predilections being anti-Europe. And this bias associated with anti-globalism, has been allowed to permeate through the mainstream press and television. And the banks too!

One random day, he woke up to his Coutts Bank accounts, which he held for 44 years, closed without any reason. That may have been intended to curtail the traction of his popularity and his political ambitions. As fate would have it, Farage’s party has turned out to be the most popular party in the UK today.

Were it not for its anti-war stance against the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and the condemning of the bombing of the Nordstream pipelines that have significantly impoverished the economy of Germany, it is difficult to imagine where the likeability of Alternative fur Deutschland or AfD for short, would come from.

This outfit has been accused of being far right, a non-descript swipe at foes of the establishment. And with such categorization, any misfortune may befall them without public empathy nor any conceivable legal consequence. Their support has been rising in local and regional elections. German politics have since fractured even more.

Romania’s elections were the litmus test for the intensity of undemocratic tendencies. In these elections, Calin Georgescu was prevented from proceeding to the second round of elections, notwithstanding his lead in the first round. Elections were cancelled and he was indicted under a number of criminal statutes with a panoply of charges and accordingly, barred from the fresh round of elections, only because he did not want NATO bases in Romania.

George Simion, successor to Georgescu, unsurprisingly won the first round of the new elections. On the day of the second round, he woke up to millions of Romanians staying in France, who at the persuasion of President Emmanuel Macron, lent their vote to the EU supported candidate, to his utter defeat.

Only the French could count those votes and announce the outcomes, a fact the owner of Telegram had warned would happen. And Marie Le Pen watched in disbelief as the tragedy unfolded slowly to entrap her in the web of alleged criminal charges.

On that worst political night of 21st May in the Oval Office, John Steenhuisen could not hold back. Requested to weigh in as Minister of Agriculture, he cared little about the Ministerial mandate from Cabinet, nor did he care about the yearnings of his agricultural clients.

Rather, he perceived the moment as ripe to request for a template for a regime change if and whenever the MK Party and EFF win the national elections, he begged with fervour that both these parties jointly or severally, should be stopped from assuming the reins of power in the Union Buildings.

No one could have predicted that the leader of the Democratic Alliance would bring his Plato instincts with him. The loss of AGOA was marginally secondary.

He believed like Plato that, for a state in which the law is respected, democracy is the worst form of government, but if the law is not respected, it is the best.

* Ambassador Bheki Gila is a Barrister-at-Law.

** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.