DA leaders John Steenhuisen & Mpho Phalatse. Photo: Supplied
The Democratic Alliance’s internal poll suggests the party is only 10 percentage points behind the ANC in terms of electoral support going into next year’s general elections, DA leader John Steenhuisen said during a debate with his contender, Mpho Phalatse.
Steenhuisen’s assertion on Monday means the DA believes the ruling party’s support will fall below 40% in next year’s elections. If this materialised, it would be a sharp drop from the 57.5% of votes the ANC received in 2019 versus 20.77% for the DA.
A report from market research company Ipsos in August 2022, based on a national poll conducted between May and July last year on a random sample of more than 3 400 respondents, suggested that 42% would vote for the ANC, 11% for the DA and 9% for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
The DA’s 20.77% showing in 2019 was a dip from 22.23% at the 2014 national elections.
This week, Steenhuisen was confident of a turnaround for the party in 2024, saying the DA would play a big role in the construction of a post-ANC South Africa. He said the 2019 internal review by the party after the election showed clearly that the party he inherited was sitting at 16% in the polls.
A number of key media houses had written off the DA, with reports of doom and gloom for the 2021 local government elections, Steenhuisen added.
“Today, I can confidently report that our hard work has paid off. It is through yours and my hard work that we’ve arrived at a point where we are not only 10% behind the ANC. Delegates, I’m proud to report that the DA is back to winning ways,” he said.
Phalatse said although she agreed with Steenhuisen that the ANC would fall below 40% in 2024, she believed the DA could bring the ruling party even further down if it ran a successful campaign.
“I’ve been on the ground talking to voters and trying to establish if they would consider giving their vote to the Democratic Alliance. Unfortunately in recent times, the party has experienced negative growth,” Phalatse said.
“We have lost over 1.4 million votes between the 2016 and the 2021 local government elections [and] 285 councillors have lost their jobs. If we don’t arrest this trajectory, this could translate into a loss of jobs within the National Assembly as well as in provincial governments.”
But she added: “Democrats, I would like to say to you that there is no doubt, however, that we’ve got a superior brand of good governance, that we’ve gotten better than the ANC. And we’d govern better than the EFF. There, however, remains a trust deficit between us and the electorate.
“And I believe that I can help us close that gap between us and the electorate. I’m a qualified medical doctor, I spent years specialising in public administration with a focus on health care to understand how the government works.”
Phalatse said she believed the trust deficit in the DA had in part been created by a climate of fear internally, adding that the party needed to go back to its liberal ideals.
“We need to ensure that individual rights are respected and upheld, we need to ensure that people don’t have to make excuses for who they choose to marry and all kinds of things, their rights are upheld and respected. That is how we are going to build a true liberal Democratic Alliance that we can take into the rest of South Africa.”
Steenhuisen dismissed any claims that a climate of fear existed in the party, arguing that the DA under his leadership has been more open to debate at the federal executive level, at the federal council level and in the caucuses.
“I would challenge you to find anyone who’s a victim of a climate of fear. In fact, it’s quite interesting that many of my previous opponents are now backing me in this election. If there was this climate of fear, surely they would have been the first victims of this? Instead, they’ve been allowed to flourish in the party, because I believe in recognising individual talents in every single member of the party and using those to achieve our joint effort,” he said.
“Here’s the thing. People can’t eat liberalism. Liberalism is not going to put food on the table for people and we can talk about these philosophies all we like. The reality is we’ve got to show people that we care about the issues that matter to them.”
Steenhuisen said the DA needed to reconsider its approach to coalitions going into the 2024 elections, noting that it had previously erred by taking over administrations from the ANC and keeping an old ANC model of governance in place.
“I think that when we get into governments and municipalities in future, one of the first tasks we should be doing is getting rid of corrupt officials. Secondly, redesigning that government in the form that we know works,” he said.
He conceded that in the 2021 local government elections the party had been caught by surprise when the EFF unexpectedly voted for DA mayors.
“We didn’t know what the EFF was going to do and how they were going to vote. But I think that we need to have a rescue plan for each municipality, a charter almost, that we can put before people and say, these are the things that we are going to achieve.
Phalatse sought to poke holes in Steenhuisen’s arguments, saying the party’s ill-preparedness for the result of the 2021 election was an indictment of its leadership.
She said the DA must be prepared to govern. Promising party delegates that things would be different with her as leader, Phalatse said the DA would not be caught unprepared by anyone sponsoring votes in 2024.