DA leader must prove that it is a party for the future

A merican President Harry S. Truman was fond of the phrase: “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen”… referring to the fact that politics is a tough place and not for the faint-hearted or thin-skinned.

That’s something the current Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, John Steenhuisen, should think about, given his aversion for talking to anyone who disagrees with him – like journalists, for instance.

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He also has blocked many on social media, indicating one of the thinnest political skins currently in the SA game. His rival, Mpho Phalatse, is not much better, ducking and diving as the DA headed into its watershed congress this weekend.

That state of affairs is a great pity because, much as we have criticised the DA – and vigorously – in the past, we realise that, at this critical juncture in our history, it has a vital role to play in building a serious bloc in opposition to the ANC.

And frankly, that is all they will be… their stated aims of ousting the ANC in the 2024 elections are divorced from reality. That reality, whether the DA spin doctors like it or not, is that it does not have enough support among nonwhite voters and is seen as a party in danger of veering to the right.

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That image of it is not helped by its seeming courting of SA’s version of Trump supporters – ranging from anti-vaxxers to homophobes with all shades in between.

Whether Phalatse is the person who can convince black voters that the DA is their future, remains to be seen. She is polished and she is ambitious, but she probably scares the DA’s traditional conservative white support base, much as former leader Mmusi Maimane did. Whoever is chosen to lead the DA needs to be ready to prove that it is a party for the future.

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