(Graphic:John McCann/M&G)
As the only contender running against Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen, Mpho Phalatse has been critical of the party’s leadership, saying it needs to be honest about its relationship with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian, Phalaste who was ousted as the mayor of Johannesburg in a motion of confidence two weeks ago, said the DA needs to be more forthright about its dealings with the Julius Malema-led EFF. Phalatse has in the past tried to convince the DA to get into a relationship with the EFF in the City of Johannesburg. This request was rejected by the party’s federal executive committee.
The association between the two parties disintegrated shortly after the 2016 local government elections when the EFF chose to renege on their arrangement by voting with the ANC to oust then Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip.
After the 2019 general elections, a panel of DA leaders appointed to assess its decline recommended that the party cease any relationship with the EFF. But despite this recommendation, Phalatse said a relationship between the red berets and the blue party still exists.
“What you’ll find, however, is that some of our minority governments in Ekurhuleni, the West Rand and even Mogale City have very loose working relations with the EFF. Not coalitions, but you’ll find that there’s healthy relations at that level.
“I think that my argument with FedEx (federal executive) last year was for the fact that this is happening in some municipalities. That’s something that, unfortunately, the party never owned. I know for a fact that a lot of our minority governments do have some working relations with the EFF.”
Phalatse argued that the DA needed to be more present in rural and black South Africa. It needed to expand to become a party for all, adding she agreed with former DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s vision.
“I was very much in support of what Mmusi was trying to achieve and I think it’s something we need to do. We would like to govern in 2024 and we would love to see ourselves becoming part of the national government in 2024.
Phalatse said the DA needed to grow its support in black communities and “to be serious about being able to penetrate that market”.
In a watershed resignation in October 2019, Maimane said it had become clear that there were those within the DA who did not see eye to eye with him or share his vision for the party or the direction it was taking.
Under his leadership, the party had transformed to become more diverse and managed to penetrate some of the traditional ANC regions. Maimane led the party when it took over traditional ANC metros, including Johannesburg, Tshwane and the Nelson Mandela Bay.
Phalatse added that she believed Steenhuisen was not a suitable leader for the current season in politics.
“We are at a time when you have a real chance and it’s a window of opportunity that may not be open for very long. We have a real chance of leading a coalition government in South Africa post 2024 as the Democratic Alliance.
“In order for us to not squander the opportunity, we would need to ensure that we grow beyond the ceiling that we seem to have reached. In order for us to grow, we would need to expand beyond our traditional support base and start looking at what markets we are not penetrating and why we aren’t. We would need to start addressing those barriers to entry in order to put ourselves in a better position to take this country forward,” she said.
While she had never experienced a culture of fear in the DA, Phalatse said she was aware that it existed.
Several high-profile DA leaders, including Herman Mashaba, Mbali Ntuli, Phumzile van Damme, Bongani Baloyi, John Moodey and Makashule Gana, have walked away from the party in recent times, arguing that it no longer represented the political ideals they identified with.
In a letter to party delegates during her contest for party leader in 2020, Ntuli described behaviour in the party as “cult-like” speaking of fear and an “insider and outsider clique”.
“As I engage with people within the party, more and more, particularly people in other provinces, I realised that there seems to be a culture of fear in the party that needs to be dealt with. I feel that that needs to be dealt with urgently because freedom is our first value and that is for me a big concern,” Phalatse said.
Phalatse said she had been able to deal with the challenges that had come her way within the party structures. Phalatse said there were attempts to slow down her progress by people within the party who red-flagged her when she ran for mayor, however emphasised that these attempts had not come from the party’s leadership.
“So, in a lot of ways, I could say that I was almost shielded from a lot of the experiences that other people have had. I never experienced that myself, except, of course, with the red-flagging, but like I said, they didn’t come from leadership, it came from people that had their own preferred candidates and tried to get me eliminated from the race.”
Addressing her controversial statements on Israel, Phalatse said she had no preference for one state over another.
She was briefly suspended as a member of Mashaba’s mayoral committee and faced an internal investigation when she made a statement that the city of Johannesburg and herself were “friends of Israel”.
The DA has a two-state policy on the ongoing conflict involving Israel and Palestine.
“Had I been at a similar meeting of Palestinians and the ambassador of Palestine, I would have said the same thing. It’s unfortunate that my words were twisted to suggest that I was saying, I’m pro Israel, and therefore I’m against Palestine — not at all. I was actually aligned with the party’s view on the matter and that’s why the federal legal council found me not guilty,” she said.
Addressing the party’s controversial economic justice policy, the former mayor said it had been poorly understood to discount race as a measure of importance to redress.
The triple burden of poverty, inequality and unemployment had worsened under the ANC, with its BBBEE policy.
“Let’s say we are operating on the premise that black people were historically marginalised and excluded from opportunity. Through what the DA is offering, black people will be brought closer to opportunities because they will be subjected to means testing.
“There’s also another population group and that’s your white poor, as an example, where BEE almost presupposes that, by virtue of race, you can assume that you’re privileged. I’ve seen many poor white families who we have had to assist on our social programmes in the city of Johannesburg.”
“There are white families that also need access to opportunities and because of BEE, unfortunately, most of the time, it’s assumed because of their race they’re not prioritised, which again, is unfair.
“One of the values of the Democratic Alliance is fairness, another value of ours is opportunity for all and another value is diversity, recognising that we are building one South Africa in which all races have equal rights as Africans.
“The poor white family, under means testing, would again be able to access opportunities under what the DA is offering. So, what it is saying is that you can’t use race alone as a metric to decide whether or not somebody has been previously disadvantaged. We’ve seen a black elite develop from the policies of the ANC.”
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