Politics is not a children’s sandpit, as Mcpherson seems to believe

Just when the Democratic Alliance seems to be on the right side of history – and the law – and its leaders are making telling comments, one of their cowboys will jump up to showcase his juvenile view of the world.

This week’s shoot-from-the-lip hero was well-known Twitter keyboard warrior Dean Mcpherson, the party’s shadow minister of trade and industry and its whip in parliament.

After the important – and precedent-setting – court ruling which saw Mpho Phalatse reinstated as mayor of Joburg; all Mcpherson could Tweet was to wonder if ANC mayor Dada Morero (who replaced Phalatse after a no-confidence vote earlier this month) would be arrested by Joburg traffic cops if he was still “driving around in the mayoral vehicle”.

Contrast that with party leader John Steenhuisen’s spot-on observation that the ruling was “a massive victory for democracy and the rule of law”.

Politics is not a children’s sandpit, as Mcpherson seems to believe. The DA court victory was important because it showed that political conniving cannot replace the rule of law when it comes to the system governing us. It was yet another example of the courts coming to the rescue after illegal conduct by the ruling party – and long may that judicial fearlessness be a feature of our democracy.

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The whole “confidence motion” strategy is being deployed all over the country by the ANC to overturn the will of the voting public, by taking away power from ruling coalitions. That in itself is ominous because it shows that the ANC is a fundamentally undemocratic organisation.

Yet, the ruling still does not remove the threat of another motion being brought to remove Phalatse, as well as other DA leaders in various municipalities around the country. That is what the DA should be focused on – not who is riding in whose car.