Steenhuisen as new DA leader will only consolidate power under Ramaphosa

Steenhuisen does not need to be a strong opposition leader: he will be a small face in the bigger agenda of the white ruling elite to consolidate power under President Cyril Ramaphosa, political analyst Xolani Dube says.

And political economy analyst Zamikhaya Maseti agrees. The DA leadership feud was an ideological separation, with anti-ANC black members such as Maimane and outgoing Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba likely to pursue their own form of liberalism outside the party and whites going back to white elite politics within the party.

Steenhuisen has no choice but to denounce his mentor, Maimane, and rebrand the party to return to its core values and principles – even if it means halting the recruitment of blacks while bagging more whites, particularly Afrikaners.

With this template, Steenhuisen has his job cut out him. His rise now makes the party’s top three all white: him, Helen Zille as federal council chair and Natasha Mazzone as chief whip.

It’s a given that Steenhuisen will become interim federal leader when the party federal council sits on November 17, subsequently taking over as leader in April 2020. As a senior and current parliamentary leader, Steenhuisen has an edge over the other candidates, Western Cape leader Bonginkosi Madikizela and parliamentarian Makashule Gana, both Maimane’s allies. 

Earlier, KwaZulu-Natal leader Zwakele Mncwango indicated he would join the race. But he might be punished for questioning Steenhuisen’s qualifications, saying as chief whip he should have a degree. Steenhuisen only has matric.

With no deputy leader position, Steenhuisen, as chief whip in the National Assembly, became a de-facto “deputy” to Maimane, who personally anointed him. As chief whip, he had to lead opposition debates and question members of the executive to hold them to account for their public functions.

This made him, after Maimane, the second most popular face of the party in parliament.

A witty man

He is known for his assertiveness and persistence, necessary when grilling executive members. He is sharp-tongued and has a gift of articulating issues calmly – a trait that makes the majority of DA public representatives distinctive.

Both Ramaphosa and his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, suffered his aggression. On several occasions, Ramaphosa would tell him to “shut up” when Steenhuisen was demanding an answer and refused to be shouted down by defensive ANC backbenchers.

To Zuma, he was clearly an irritant as Steenhuisen continuously demanded accountability for his shenanigans: the Nkandla scandal, state capture, the host of criminal charges the former president faced.

Steenhuisen’s insistence about the Nkandla non-security upgrades and his call for Zuma to pay back the extra cost prompted Zuma to mimic him for his mispronunciation of Nkandla as ‘Inkandla’. To the amusement of the House, Zuma jokingly repeated the word ‘Inkandla’, ‘Inkandla’ before his obligatory reply.

Steenhuisen has combatant stamina in the battle of ideas and does not fail to follow up on his questions. He has proven to be a reservoir of knowledge despite being teased for lacking tertiary qualifications.

But he was haunted by a rape allegation, resuscitated by EFF leader Julius Malema in parliament late last year. Malema retaliated after Steenhuisen accused EFF MPs of being VBS bank looters. Steenhuisen, who vehemently denies the allegations, took Malema to task in what became a chaotic debate in Parliament.

While Maimane was said to be too nice to be a leader, Steenhuisen is assertive, even aggressive – but polite. Unlike Maimane, who specialised in attacking the ANC for its mistakes and targeting misdemeanours of ANC presidents, Steenhuisen has pledged to adopt his own style of leadership.

He has vowed to change the party from one that specialised in bashing the government to the one that plays a constructive opposition role. This would entail building the party into an “iron fortress”.

A move to the right

Many analysts have dissected the new approach and what Steenhuisen actually means with returning his party to its core values and principles and guiding it to “find its spine again”.

Ralph Mathekga, author on ANC politics, says the change of direction had more to do with moving to the right. The DA was infiltrated by a Scandinavian right-wing group that wants white liberalism to spread worldwide and had identified the DA as a vehicle for this, he claims.

Interestingly, Steenhuisen made no qualms about returning to core liberalism. But none of the ANC leftists would agree with his assertion that liberalism accommodated the uprooting of poverty and minimising unemployment. They would cringe to hear him say that liberalism transcended South Africa’s history of discrimination, divisions and inequality as practised under apartheid.

But to Steenhuisen, this is what the DA liberalism was all about.

He intends to change the DA’s slide into populism. He wants to stop it being a “big wobbly jelly” – a veiled reference to Maimane’s failed attempt to introduce racial “diversity”, which led the party to adopt ANC-like policies into a “fortress”.

This is not surprising. Many say Steenhuisen could not have been nominated as candidate leader without denouncing Maimane’s policy approach. It is ironic that his main task would be to reverse the leadership legacy of his mentor.

Dube, also researcher at the Xubera Institute for Research and Development, says Steenhuisen’s lack of qualifications do not matter in politics. What matters is his ability to push the agenda of the elite.

Same difference

The DA economic policies and current ANC policies under Ramaphosa have a lot in common, Dube claims, therefore business saw no need for the two parties to fight each other.

The ANC is currently pursuing what he coined “Ramatitonomics”, which he describes as a combination of Ramaphosa’s deal of the New Dawn and the liberal economic policies of his finance minister, Tito Mboweni. 

“You find the voice of Ramatitonomics in the medium-term budget while the ANC seems to be confused in a corner at Luthuli House. The business sector has managed to make the ANC hollow and, on the other side, the DA as the opposition is also hollow. So we are under the dictatorship of the minerals-energy complex,” Dube said.

According to Dube, the rich and white are running SA through Ramatitonomics. He argued that the leadership of the DA by Steenhuisen was not important. What was important was who was running the country.

“Steenhuisen will no longer be a threat to Ramaphosa. He will compliment Ramaphosa; the deal is done.”

Had Maimane not attacked Ramaphosa and embarrassed him about the funding of his ANC presidential campaign, allegedly by Bosasa and big business, he would still be DA leader.

“Maimane was indoctrinated to target Zuma and any ANC president. But he attacked Ramaphosa – and that’s where he made a mistake. Maimane did not see the bigger political picture; he was naive,” Dube says.

Former DA leader Tony Leon, former Capitec Bank chair Michiel Le Roux, and DA strategist Ryan Coetzee were the biggest influences in Maimane’s departure. Their panel report blamed him for the DA’s poorer performance in the May elections and recommended he resign.

“They were saying Maimane was wrong to take Ramaphosa to task because it exposed the big business funders who did not want to be known. The people who funded the ANC and the CR17 campaign are also funding the DA,” Dube says.

Le Roux, who was in the DA panel, is one of the captains of industry who frequently sit down with Ramaphosa to map out the direction of SA’s economy.

“Le Roux is part of the elite ruling class that sets the agenda for our country.”

According to Dube, there is a realignment of power not based on political affiliation but on a class interest: the elite.

“So between Steenhuisen and Ramaphosa there is no opposition; they will be working for the same goal.”

• Naki is political editor at The Citizen

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