White DA members fight to keep party from turning into ‘diluted’ ANC

The side of the Democratic Alliance (DA) that wants the party’s leadership to better reflect South Africa’s demographics continues to face resistance from white members of the party who have written a letter that strongly rejects the proposal.

The letter, titled ‘Real Progressives Reject Groupthink’, was written by two prominent members in the party, Gavin Davis and Michael Cardo, after DA Gauteng leader John Moodey sent a memorandum to the party’s public representatives, criticising the lack of “ordinary voting delegates” from black townships, the Sunday Times reports.

The letter comes, as one insider points out to the Sunday paper, as Tshwane Mayor Solly Msimanga and Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trollip go toe to toe for the position of federal chairperson. The so-called black caucus is in support of Msimanga for the position.

Racial representation is not the only issue in the party, but gender too, in a party dominated by white men. But Davis and Cardo think these proposed plans to level things in the party are an attempt to “turn the DA into a diluted version of the ANC”.

Their letter says that while they welcome the proposed amendment to promote diversity, the proposal and its language – words such as “transformation” and “representivity” – bore too close a resemblance to the ANC’s values of racial representation.

DA KZN MPL Hlanganani Gumbi and chairman of the DA federal council James Selfe have dismissed the letter. Gumbi emphasised the importance of transformation in the party, while Selfe downplayed the letter as just part of an ongoing debate.

Selfe said the DA’s constitutional review committee had approved the proposed amendments, but they would still have to be decided on at the upcoming DA national conference.

DA spokesperson Phumzile van Damme on Sunday morning dismissed the notion that the matter could be simply split between black members who are pro-transformation and white members who oppose it.

She tweeted: “I know many white DA members who agree that ‘diversity’ should be included in the Constitution as a value, and similarly, Black delegates who disagree.”

Van Damme tweeted her thoughts in a thread:

Davis has since added to her tweets to reiterate that they were not so much opposed to diversity as to the formulation of the proposed amendment in its favour: