Helen Zille and Tony Leon: Two easy ways for the DA to alienate black voters

Reports that former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon has been roped in to help oust Mmusi Maimane are disturbing if they are true.

It’s not that the embattled DA leader must not be removed if it’s for the good of the party. It’s that the manner of his removal would serve to confirm what their critics have always claimed – the DA belongs to a certain section of its membership and people like Maimane, Herman Mashaba and Solly Msimango are just part of the party’s window-dressing.

Tony Leon stepped down as leader of the party in 2006 after 13 years as party leader. He was followed by Helen Zille, who clocked up almost a decade with the DA, also counting the years she stayed on as Western Cape premier.

It’s been a mere four years for the DA’s first black leader and the real owners of the party have stepped up to have him removed.

Small problem, though: real owners of the party are white and Maimane is black, so the conspiracy theories are in overdrive.

Zille hasn’t denied that she’s headed back into active politics by standing for federal chair of the party, which would effectively mean she’d be responsible for the day-to-day running of the DA, further cementing theories that Maimane was only in that position at the mercy of the old guard and that when they want him out, they will have him out.

Their problem is that there is a problem of perception: black stars that shine really brightly will always be targeted for removal by the old guard, which is white.

Lindiwe Mazibuko and Patricia de Lille would not disagree with that theory.

Sure, the hypocrites in the party will claim Maimane should have kept his hands clean, meaning the present DA leader’s recent mishaps are the reason he’s being removed.

The truth of the matter is Maimane’s alleged benefitting from questionable characters is something the DA has always known, but they’ve only brought it up and highlighted it as a problem when they want to get rid of him.

Maimane’s ethical mishaps have very little, or nothing, to do with why he must make way, it is the direction of the party that the old guard is not happy about.

He is supposed to have failed in delivering that magical middle-class black vote that is so disillusioned with the ANC.

Their problem is if they cared to analyse their reasons for wanting Maimane gone, they would realise they’re playing into the hands of those that say the DA was never a party for everyone.

And it is that critical and educated middle-class black whom they wanted to vote for Maimane, who now realises that he was only a caretaker of the party for the white old guard.

And therein lies the DA’s problem: who votes for a leader who is a front?

Maybe Maimane is an ineffective leader who failed to truly capitalise on the many blunders of the ruling party to increase the DA’s poll showing. Maybe he’s not such a good leader after all.

But the truth of the matter is it’s the perceptions of the people who vote that will determine what’s good, or not, for the DA.

The return of Leon behind the scenes and Zille in the engine room is not the way to woo black voters. In fact, it is the way to alienate them.

Sydney Majoko.

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