The DA must work on being a voice

The Democratic Alliance (DA) knows it is at a crossroads in its history and this year will be the one which will determine whether or not it will continue to write its name large in South Africa’s history books.

Interim leader John Steenhuisen has acknowledged frankly that the party has fallen out of favour with voters (both black and white) and that it has its work cut out in trying to “reach across the aisle” to those people who support the party’s liberal values.

Liberal, when applied to the DA by its critics, has become a sort of shorthand for “right-wing” and “conservative”. And it is not difficult to see why the party can been seen to have swung to the right in the past two or three years.

There have been highly publicised political divorces within the party, like those of former leader Mmusi Maimane and former Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba.

The parting of the ways between the party and those two influential black politicians was confirmation for many that the DA had become a party which was more concerned with white interests than anything else. The re-appearance of the outspoken Helen Zille in a position of influence in the DA has added to the unease of some.

Steenhuisen is still considered the favourite to retain leadership at the party’s elective conference in May, although he faces challenges from Gauteng leader John Moodey and KwaZulu-Natal leader Mbali Ntuli. The latter represents the young, educated, upwardly mobile black middle class who had drifted towards the DA in the years of the depredations of state capture under former president Jacob Zuma, but who have gone back to the ANC after the election of Cyril Ramaphosa.

The DA must continue to show it can play a critical role as a vocal, yet loyal, opposition which speaks for all South Africans.

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