Big challenge for Steenhuisen

Achieving party unity, growing the support base and a better performance in next year’s local government elections are some challenges ahead for newly-elected Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen, political experts said yesterday.

Having won by a sizable 80% of votes from delegates attending the virtual DA elective congress, to convincingly beat rival KwaZulu-Natal MPL Mbali Ntuli, Steenhuisen has taken over the reins of South Africa’s official opposition, since the departure of Mmusi Maimane.

According to University of Pretoria political science lecturer Ro-land Henwood and University of South Africa (Unisa) professor of politics Dirk Kotze, Steenhuisen has his work cut out.

Said Henwood: “Internally, it is going to be important for Steenhuisen to establish his leadership in the party. You had a leadership contest and there might be people who are not convinced about you.“As we see in all political parties, leadership contestations leave scars and issues, because there is a winner and loser.

“In the context of the DA, the differences have been stark: race, generational gap and gender.

“While he [Steenhuisen] would have to establish his leadership, reaching out to people who were not his supporters will be crucial for building party unity.

“You do not want this to trigger a split in the party.

“The major objective is internal. Externally it would be to establish the party as a trusted brand and an alternative political party people could consider seriously to vote for.”

On whether his election as leader would constitute a threat to the ANC, Henwood said: “He is a white male, which is just South Africa today.

“But he can be a very effective opposition leader and can be a very effective politician with a broader perspective and big ide-as.

“What the DA did some years back when [re-elected chair of DA federal council] Helen Zille was leader, was to successfully project the party as an alternative to the ANC, something which formed the foundation of the DA becoming a governing party in some municipalities and later in the Western Cape.

“On whether he will be a direct threat to the ANC, and specifically to President Cyril Ramaphosa, I don’t see that in the short-term.

“But that is going to be determined more by what happens in the ANC than in the DA.”

As a political party, Henwood said the DA was “under huge pressure”.

“There are a lot of questions being asked about the future of the party – which has taken some knocks – in terms of losing some support, with some people moving to the Freedom Front and others back to the ANC.

“At this stage the party seems to be developing its own narrative and not responding to the ANC.

“Selling that to potential to voters is what is key,” said Henwood.

Unisa’s Kotze agreed with Henwood on Steenhuisen reaching out to opponents within the DA.

“While his vision for the DA came out strongly, what was missing was Steenhuisen reaching out Brian SokutuWith next year’s local government elections expected to be fiercely-contested, a political analyst – citing ongoing revelations of graft in government and the ANC’s failure to discipline its deployed cadres – has predicted that the polls would show signs of the governing party’s demise.

Dr Mazwe Majola of the Worldwide Institute of Leadership and Development, said widespread corruption was at the core of the party losing credibility and trust among South Africans, with ANC leaders “brazenly defying ANC rules and instructions from the national executive committee [NEC] to step aside if implicated in corrupt activities”.

“They continue to pooh-pooh the party’s integrity committee recommendations, deriding NEC instructions to step aside, while clearing their names in courts of law.

“If party members deployed to government continue to dis-respect the organisation, the demise of the ANC is in the offing,” maintained Majola.

“President Cyril Ramaphosa is trying to lead the party towards the desired direction, but is hamstrung by comrades who are working against him.”

While echoing Majola’s sentiments on the ANC coming un-der “substantial pressure in the next local government polls”, political economy expert Daniel Silke said corruption would not be enough to unseat the governing party from power.

“I am not sure corruption on its own is enough to unseat the ANC,” said Silke.

“I think economic hardship, service delivery inefficiency and failure of ANC public representatives to connect with local communities are likely to chip away at the ANC over the next while.

“Corruption is one of the key factors that will demobilise ANC voters or make them think twice about voting.

“It is not enough on its own, but a contributory factor.”

Silke said Ramaphosa’s hands were “largely tied to only implement ANC policy”.

“Leaders of a political party can only implement what the party allows them to do.“Ramaphosa sits as head of a party, which has a series of policies – all voted on over the last decade under the Jacob Zuma presidency.

“ANC members have often said resolutions are passed at national conferences but leaders refuse to implement them. “There is a very large disconnect between the Ramaphosa elite and the rank and file, which still represent the last years of Zuma.

“If Ramaphosa was strong enough to impose his will on the party and begin to suggest policy formulation into the future, it would take years for the ANC to vote on them.

“Another factor is that Ramaphosa may also still be fragile within the ANC and maybe wanting to consolidate his support base on a personal level,” said Silke.

He said opposition parties “should blame themselves for not capitalising on ANC weak-nesses” in the run-up to next year’s polls.

“There has been a general disarray within the opposition,” said Silke.

“Until voters see opposition parties as being attractive enough, in terms of policy certainty and personalities, they will not feel secure voting for the opposition that will not under-mine an ability to get a job, salary or state pension,

“The ANC has been successful in keeping voters through dependency politics.

“The ANC ultimately hands out the benefits, jobs and social income grants.

“The inability of opposition parties to really crack that helps keep the ANC in power.”

“In failing to reach out to her, I think there was a missed oppor-tunity to call her to join him on stage, in a show of unity.

“It will be interesting to see how he is going to respond to her in the coming days because it will be a bad approach if he leaves her in the cold,” said Kotze.

The DA, he said, should also “spend time refining proposals accepted by the congress into pol-icy positions”.

“They did not do much in terms of policy formulation because there were no extensive discussions on contentious issues, like race and other issues,” said Kotze

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