Steenhuisen’s win will signal victory for Zille-led faction – analyst

While Democratic Alliance (DA) MP John Steenhuisen is today set to be elected leader of South Africa’s official opposition, the virtual DA elective congress is expected to signal a victory by the Helen Zille-led right-leaning faction of the party, a leading political analyst said on Friday.

Against the resignation a year ago of from the DA by Mmusi Maimane, who quit as leader and party member of the party, the DA will hold a virtual conference this weekend to elect a new head.

As chair of the DA federal council – behind the transformation and successful lobbying for black party former leaders Mmusi Maimane and Lindiwe Mazibuko – Zille, according to Nelson Mandela University lecturer Ongama Mtimka, was the kingmaker behind the throne.

Said Mtimka: “The DA congress is a mere confirmation of the power of Helen Zille and the right-leaning faction in the party.

“It is a faction that has been attempting to reclaim the DA since this time last year.

“Even though John Steenhuisen was an emerging leader beyond Maimane, I think his election will be the confirmation of the shifting of power in the DA towards the Helen faction – less about him (Steenhuisen) as a leader.”

Asked to reflect on strengths and weaknesses of Steenhuisen and rival leadership candidate Mbali Ntuli, Mtimka said: “The contest is not about the strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates.

“The politics of the DA are about retracting from the trajectory that Maimane had carved.

“Steenhuisen is at home with the politics of reclaiming the party – even if he was not opposed to the politics of Mmusi Maimane.

“This elective congress is much broader than the strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates – but about the reclaiming of the party by the right-wing leaning faction of the party that wants to make the DA a party that represents minority interests in the country.”

Responding to comments by former DA chief whip Douglass Gibson – now South African ambassador to Thailand – who has said Ntuli was “young and inexperienced” for the position of leader, Mtimka said: “There is a degree of dishonesty when it comes to the connotation of qualification for office in the DA.

“Must you have a higher education qualification?

“Must you have experience in the party for a long time?

“Or must you have risen through the ranks?

“She (Ntuli) has been trusted enough to have been an MPL of the party at provincial government level. I don’t think that if there was no trust in her having an ability to lead, she would have risen to those ranks in the party.

“People are just being disingenuous in questioning her qualifications and experience.

“Leadership potential and charisma in the party plays a very important role in the rise of leaders within the party – more than experience.”

Mtimka said Zille would go down in history as “a person who set a great legacy when in office, only to come back and destroy it many years later”.

“I think that her personal politics of perhaps feeling aggrieved by Mmusi’s, Athol Trollip and James Self stance on her views on colonialism, I think she may have had too personal a gripe that she wanted to come back,” said Mtimka.

Explaining why Steenhuisen deserved the DA party leadership position, University of South Africa professor of political science, Dirk Kotze said: “There is a very good chance for Steenhuisen to be elected leader because he has come through the ranks – having served as chief whip and as interim leader.

“Mbali Ntuli has not had the same exposure and public profile as Steenhuisen.

“There were also internal limitations in campaigning within the DA because they could not move around due to lockdown regulations – giving Steenhuisen an advantage.

“Maimane got into this position too quickly.

“If it was at a later stage, he would have become a better leader and the same would apply to her (Ntuli).”

-brians@citizen.co.za

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