Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy/M&G
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen has defended himself from detractors who have in the past questioned his ability to run the country with a matric qualification.
Speaking to the Mail & Guardian this week, Steenhuisen said the Constitution is very clear about who can serve as president and what qualifications are required.
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“If we want to exclude 87% of the population because they don’t have a degree from getting public offers, I think that’s very elitist and I think it’s very exclusionary,” he said.
“Yes, I have a matric certificate. I studied at university. I never finished my degree. I studied politics and law. Nothing I learnt in politics had any bearing whatsoever on what politics is really about.”
Steenhuisen added that some of the greatest leaders such as Winston Churchill have not had degrees.
“We’ve had leaders here ourselves in South Africa who have no university degrees,” he said. “A university degree doesn’t make you more honest. A university degree doesn’t make you more able.
“Yes, it’s a piece of paper, and I have huge respect for people who have got degrees and who go out to seek degrees, but in the modern world, degrees are becoming less and less of a requirement.
“There’s nothing I would have learned in university that I haven’t learnt over the last 23 years of being an activist, being a councillor, being a member of a provincial legislature and being a member of parliament, a chief whip and a leader of a political party that could stand me in better stead to be able to lead here.”
He added that he would rather admit to not having a degree than “to do what the latest trend seems to be and pretend you have one”.
“I’m honest about who I am. I’m not ashamed about who I am. Judge me by my contribution and what I can achieve. And I think I can out-debate most people with doctorates when it comes to politics,” he said.
Steenhuisen also defended the DA’s letter to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking for resources for independent, domestic observers to the upcoming elections.
Reacting to criticism by former president Thabo Mbeki, who said the DA’s trust was effectively in the white world, Steenhuisen said his party had sent letters to African countries as well.
He said that the leaking of political parties’ candidate lists by an Electoral Commission of South Africa official meant that the IEC had failed at the first hurdle in this election.
“That is not an organisation that, I’m afraid, instils much confidence when at the very first hurdle they trip over it,” Steenhuisen said.
He said it was a “healthy, normal practice” for parties to invite other countries to be observers of an election, adding that although he had confidence in the credibility of the IEC, it has problems that include funding.
“We’ve had vote tabulation problems with the IEC. Two elections ago, all our votes at Benjamin Pine Primary School were given to the ACDP [African Christian Democratic Party]. We only found out weeks after the election; we’d had proper simultaneous tabulation taking place. You could pick those anomalies up, the IEC is not perfect,” Steenhuisen said.
“Yes. I’m not saying they’re evil people. I’m not saying that they’re malicious. But in an election that is so heavily contested, I don’t understand what the hoo-ha is about having more sets of independent eyes on the process to give the result more legitimacy.”