THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE: WHEN THE PAST BECOMES THE FUTURE!
Dumisani Tembe
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is not interested in becoming the ruling party in South Africa. It is content with being the official opposition. Even in this role, it does not represent all South Africans, but a white economically powered constituency.
This is not necessarily wrong. It is normal in liberal democracies for political parties to choose to choose particular constituencies, and not others. The difficulty of the DA is that it needs a substantive electoral base to represent the interests of its white haves’ constituency. For this to happen, it needs to dig deeper into the pool of black voters, without representing them, or their interests.
This has been the dilemma for the DA: strengthening its constituency representation through the broadening of its electoral base. The latter inherently meant reaching out to black voters to vote for the DA. The irony though, is that the DA could not simply get black voters, without reflecting blacks in the leadership echelons of the party. Adding to this dilemma, both the emergence of the black leadership, and mass voters within the DA comes with expectations from both ends – at the leadership and voting levels. Inherently, this means the dilution of the DA’s core ideological stance.
Ideologically, the DA is a conservative political party. Whilst rhetorically it presents itself as a liberal political party, in real terms, the DA is a conservative political party. The DA is a conglomeration of remnants of white political parties from the apartheid era. This includes the Progressive Party; the then (New) National Party; and the then Democratic Party. All these parties have always represented a variance of white interests.
In short, the DA through its predecessors to what it is today, has never had black interests at the core of its existence. It has never been a liberal political party. The DA through its predecessors to what it is today, has always been a white interests’ political party. It has become, more acutely so during this liberal democratic era - a conservative political party. The DA has always been increasingly driven by the quest to maintain the material status quo drawn from apartheid socio-economic patterns.
Therefore, any black person who has joined the DA based on liberal ideological appeal, is politically mistaken. Former DA parliamentary leader, Ms. Lindiwe Mazibuko was pushed out of the DA for leading the parliamentary caucus to vote in favour of affirmative action policies. Then former DA Cape Town Mayor, Ms Patricia De Lille, claimed that she was pushed out of her position for driving a transformation agenda. Mmusi Maimane has been trying to position the DA as the party for “all South African”. He is now threading on thin grounds.
Maimane has failed to appreciate that the DA cannot assume the mainstream of South Africa’s political spectrums. In fact, by seeking to reposition the DA from its conservatism to the mainstream party for all, Maimane set the war within the DA. Whilst this slogan existed within the DA from the days of Zille, Maimane gave it some vigor. Whilst with Zille the slogan did look for what it is, rhetoric, with a black Maimane, the slogan carried some weight of a transforming DA from within. Therefore, it was bound to ring alarm bells within the DA core circles.
So, Zille is right, Maimane and a whole range of black collective leaders in the DA, has been an “experiment gone wrong”. This is not so much that Maimane has not performed well in the position, but that his presence at the top, has inadvertently veered the DA away from its core ideological base – conservatism. The purge of Maimane, therefore, has nothing to do with the DA’s performance in the last election. It has all to do with the DA’s loss of conservatism ideological stance.
Mainstream liberals are more comfortable with President Cyril Ramaphosa than Maimane. Ramaphosa has purposefully and more powerfully positioned himself as a core liberal president. Whilst white liberals cannot bring themselves to vote the ruling ANC, they are rather more comfortable with a liberal president presiding over the ruling ANC, and the state.
This dispenses any possible liberal role that the opposition such as the DA can plan. The white liberals have a liberal president, and a ruling party that is pursuing liberal policies, as such, they have no reason to back up an official opposition battling to assert its liberal role in society. The DA therefore, is going through its own internal ideological assertion, and repositioning in society.
This ideological repositioning is to place the DA as a conservative political agenda. That is, positioning itself as the champion of the interests of the white constituency privileged by the apartheid regime. It is assuming the political space increasingly assumed by the Freedom Front Plus. There is a recognition therefore within the DA core leadership, that frankly, it does not need to win elections. The DA will do much better by asserting its authority as the key representative of white constituencies.
Therefore, the DA is not preoccupied with winning national elections. This is an illusion that Maimane has been pursuing through locating the DA into the mainstream of South African politics. If the DA were to win elections, it would have to assume the burden of catering for the welfare of the black majority of South Africans. It will be burdened with the politics of transformation, redistribution, affirmative action, and all sorts of empowerment.
These are directly countenanced with the conservative ideology of the DA. In this instance, the return of Zille therefore to the party indicates the willingness of the DA to remain strong within minority representation. It is an ideological spectrum that it fears losing to the Freedom Front Plus.
It is a serious ideological dilemma that the DA finds itself in: It can not assume a posture as an alternative to the ANC for the black masses because the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have already assumed that ideological posture; it is losing its liberal ideological posture because
Ramaphosa is doing well in positioning himself, and the ANC in this regard; and the growth of the FF Plus in the last elections, is also displacing the DA in this regard.
So, the most viable ideological positioning the DA stands a chance, is conservatism, and reclaiming such space from the FF Plus. In this regard, Maimane and many other black leaders within the DA, can not be part of this equation. These black leaders, even if they are liberals, they are not politically home within the DA. Partly because the DA is not a liberal party, and there’s doubt that blacks can be conservatives within South African political spectrums.
The question therefore for Maimane and his township colleagues within the DA is simple: Where to now?
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