SA politics is not for sissies

Politics is not for the faint-hearted.

It has become normal to see some politicians crumbling under a volley of attacks, sometimes being roasted by MPs from opposite benches in the National Assembly, where a thick skin comes in handy.

Free speech in parliament allows MPs to go for the jugular during intense debates to demobilise political opponents – a desired effect.

Despite being known for his thick skin, DA strongman Tony Leon once found himself a hurt and a humiliated leader of the opposition during the president’s budget vote debate in May 2005 – and walked out of parliament.

ALSO READ: Maimane slams Tony Leon for calling him ‘an experiment that went wrong’

Responding to a charge against him and his party, led by ANC chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe, that the DA was complicit in apartheid crimes, Leon fired back: “Mr Goniwe is a fascist and the DA will not sit listening to such fascist filth in parliament or anywhere else in the country.

“Mr Goniwe should be disciplined for the utterances he made and if the ANC is truly committed to democracy and the rule of law, they will discipline him.”

Goniwe accused the DA of being “the most-backward and reactionary defenders of racist capital in South Africa”.

He claimed the DA was “a reincarnation of apartheid” – a statement Leon found too much to bear. Several years into his political retirement, Leon dropped a boo-boo when he said the DA’s first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, was “an experiment gone wrong”.

In SA – a country that has emerged from the tyranny of apartheid – little did we expect the former DA leader to refer to Maimane as the party’s black experiment that went wrong.

Leon’s candid admission on Maimane has confirmed that the DA – a party not truly committed to non-racialism, other than mere window-dressing – has a long way to go in a drive to attract votes from Soweto and Alexandra.

His message, likely to backfire and create a headache for current leader John Steenhuisen in the run-up to the local elections, represents the soul truth about a party trying very hard to portray itself the champion of non-racialism.

Skin colour still matters in the DA. Leon’s utterances about Maimane represent what the party truly stands for – manna from heaven for the ANC and the EFF.

The black experiment lends credence to how Goniwe described the DA. Black voters, who are traditionally split between the ANC, EFF, UDM and IFP, surely see Leon’s insensitive outburst as no surprise.

Helen Zille, the abrasive chair of the DA federal council, has, in the past, made politically controversial tweets, to be repudiated by Maimane. Among other tweets, Zille said there were more racist laws in a democratic South Africa than under apartheid.

“All racist laws are wrong. But permanent victimhood is too highly prized to recognise this,” she tweeted. In 2019,

Zille released a series of tweets asserting that SA’s colonial heritage was not all negative. She maintained that colonialism included “our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water, etc”.

“Would we have had a transition into specialised health care and medication without colonial influence? Just be honest,” she added.

This drew a response from Maimane, who found the “logic of colonialism” as having culminated in apartheid a crime against humanity.

Awaiting how much more is to be spewed by the DA liberals like Leon and Zille.

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