Steenhuisen ‘a chameleon who betrayed Maimane’, says analyst

In an apparent move to try and kill two birds with one stone, the Democratic Alliance top brass appointed Mmusi Maimane’s right hand-man, John Steenhuisen, as the party’s parliamentary leader.

This is seen as an attempt to keep him and other Maimane sympathisers in the party and to use Steenhuisen’s skin colour to lure white conservatives voters back to its fold. Steenhuisen has been criticised for not standing by Maimane and siding with the push to the right.

Zamikhaya Maseti, a political economy analyst, said Steenhuisen was a chameleon who betrayed Maimane by not resigning.

“Steenhuisen represents the ‘Judas Iscariotism’ that is creeping within the DA, because he was part of the Maimane leadership. Now he is demonising him, when Athol Trollip took the most principled stand to resign and take responsibility for the DA’s poor performance in the last election,” Maseti said.

“This is an act of betrayal. Steenhuisen can’t be a good leader of the party because he has no backbone. Anyone who leads the DA will be confronted by the same challenges that confronted Maimane.”

Steenhuisen’s sudden elevation was seen as a way to counter further bleeding of the DA, which suffered a severe blow with the resignations of Maimane, Trollip and outgoing Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba within days of each other last week. Maimane and Mashaba clearly stated they left because the DA could not transform racially.

Maseti said the DA was consolidating its classical neoliberalism. The black members should rather come together to establish their own liberal party that would represent the interests of the poor – something they could not do under the DA.

Another political analyst, Ralph Mathekga, said the party’s sudden change of direction to the right, went beyond Helen Zille’s chopping and changing of leaders. It’s part of a worldwide right-wing network, intent to impose their hegemony using parties to consolidate liberalism.

“The refusal of the DA leadership to reconcile after the backlash that followed the resignations of Maimane, Mashaba and Trollip shows this can’t just be a Zille alone matter. This is more than Zille. We might be dealing with a wider right-wing network,” Mathekga said.

The analyst cautioned it would be a mistake to look at the developments around the DA through the return of Zille.

“Worldwide, this network knows they have no majority, but they are determined to achieve what they want. The DA leaders may even show black members the door, they don’t care anymore,” Mathekga said.

Fearing that Steenhuisen could also leave the currently leaderless party, the DA decided to elevate him to the crucial post of parliamentary leader. As chief whip, Steenhuisen was the face of the party and leader of the opposition debate, something that qualified him to be elected as Maimane’s replacement at the next federal council sitting next month.

Steenhuisen will contest the position against his nemesis, KwaZulu-Natal leader Zwakele Mncwango, and possibly Western Cape premier, Alan Winde. But the odds are stacked against Mncwango, who could pay for embarrassing the party by calling for Steenhuisen not to be considered for a leadership position because he had no post-matric qualification.

Also, the DA couldn’t afford another black leader immediately after it got rid of Maimane, whom it blamed for the party’s poor performance at the 2019 elections. With Zille presently in the driver’s seat as federal executive chair and steering the party to the right, the DA was expected to return to chasing white votes – particularly Afrikaners that left the party for Freedom Front Plus. Steenhuisen, as a white person, would be preferred to lead the process rather than Mncwango or the little-known Winde.

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