Recent events provide a chance for the Democratic Alliance to make meaningful changes, argues Tony Leon
In a political spectacle that was part drama, part farce, most of the New National Party national and provincial leadership recently withdrew from the Democratic Alliance to pursue cooperative government with the African National Congress.
Our detractors believe this turn of events leaves the DA in a cul-de-sac: they argue that the party is now excluded from the political “mainstream”, with support from the racial minorities but no prospect of expanding our support among black South Africans.
This is, of course, exactly the outcome the ANC has in mind. In a revealing slip recently, Jeremy Cronin was reported saying: “NNP Cabinet members will be bound by Cabinet essentially ANC policy. The key thing is that this cooperation offers the possibility of defeating the Tony Leon project.”
In other words, the idea is to coopt the NNP through a form of political bribery without conceding anything important, gain power in the Western Cape and break the back of the DA. The totalitarian impulse and underlying paranoia implicit in this strategy has Thabo Mbeki’s stamp all over it.
The trouble with all this is twofold: first, it is anti-democratic; second, it won’t work.
Ultimately, any meaningful counterweight to the ANC can only succeed from a position of independence. Those who confuse this misnamed cooperation agreement with the nebulous concept of “reconciliation” are apparently blind to the fact that the logical consequence of their utopian dream is a de facto one party state, where everyone is bound by “essentially ANC” policy and there is no opposition worth the name. Indeed, this misconstruction of the ANC/NNP deal is potentially lethal to real reconciliation and its necessary foundation: a vibrant democracy.
In any event, if it is the political union of the majority and the minorities that is the objective here, what sense is there in making a pact with a few political vagrants who do not command the support of those who are supposed to be brought inside?
Sadly, in some enfeebled minds, the ANC’s considerable power mutates mysteriously into a moral force, so that unabashed opposition to that party’s approach becomes unpatriotic, reactionary and racist, and hence illegitimate. Happily, we reject this notion. It is self-evident nonsense that South Africa can only be built from the government benches or with the ANC’s favour.
Those who say the DA is now at a dead end are confusing strategic thinking with its tempting alternative, wishful thinking. A clear-eyed analysis of the events of the past few months shows that the DA project will be better served in the medium term without the presence of Marthinus van Schalkwyk and those around him.
The DA faces the same choice today as it did at inception in June last year: either we define ourselves as an opposition that represents, predominantly, voters from the minorities the watchdog role or we set ourselves the task of building an alternative to the ANC that might in time become part of a new government.
There is nothing particularly wrong with being a watchdog opposition it is an honourable and potentially influential role but it is better to build the kind of counterweight that can challenge for power. That was our view in June last year. It remains our view today.
The simple consequence of this choice was that, if we were to succeed, we would have to develop an identity that would be attractive to black South Africans while retaining our support among people from the racial minorities.
What does this mean in practice? A party cannot pretend to be what it is not and so fool voters into supporting it. Parties must change from the inside out. Thus we began to design an agenda for internal change. Unfortunately, we never got much beyond the initial design stage, primarily because Van Schalkwyk and those around him refused to give it their active support. We were told repeatedly that Roelf Meyer had led the NNP down the garden path with just this kind of thinking and that our focus should be on “consolidating” the minorities.
The greatest advantage of Van Schalkwyk’s departure is that we are now able to prosecute the internal changes required to redefine ourselves and successfully grow our support among black South Africans. Indeed, unity of purpose is the most significant consequence of his leaving.
What is the substance of our agenda?
First, it requires us to undertake a considered reaffirmation of our core values and principles, because without this foundation no identity will be authentic or compelling. We need to find new ways to show South Africa how individuals, free from the constraints of authoritarian government, can prosper and grow.
Second, it demands that we reconceptualise our policy programme. We must show how caring government is able to intervene to create opportunity without controlling the lives of the people it serves; we must demonstrate our commitment to destroying apartheid’s legacy.
Third, it requires us to finalise a constitution that fully democratises the party, allowing every interest a voice. We must also ensure an appropriate relationship between authority, responsibility and accountability inside the party.
Fourth, we must broaden our leadership to reflect the diversity of the people we wish to serve. We have not done this successfully and it can no longer wait. We must act with determination and speed, and we will.
Fifth, it requires us to establish ourselves as a grassroots party one that is visible in communities, that connects with the experience of ordinary people, that is never aloof or unfeeling. We must become a party of activists, not of professional politicians.
All this now becomes possible. But a brutally honest assessment of our situation also requires consideration of the negative impact of the NNP leadership’s withdrawal.
There are two disadvantages to consider. First, we are no longer able to use the Western Cape provincial government as an example of the alternative the DA offers. We delivered the soundest financial management of any province in South Africa; we delivered free anti-retrovirals to pregnant women with HIV and rape survivors; we were developing a far-reaching crime fighting strategy; we delivered better education to the poorest children than anywhere else in South Africa.
Second, while we are left with the bulk of the NNP’s former supporters, it will take a bit back out with it. But we know that the NNP’s voters, both white and coloured, are deeply distrustful of the ANC. We know too that the NNP has developed a reputation over the past 10 years for betraying its supporters.
The NNP cannot be much more than a 2% party right now. As Professor Lawrence Schlemmer notes in his recent analysis of a voter opinion survey: “The split in the opposition alliance may have been public and messy, but is unlikely to alter the political landscape significantly.”
It should be obvious that neither of these downsides can throw the DA off track, despite the wishful thinking of the ANC and certain newspaper analysts. For while it is preferable to control a provincial government, it is not necessary to winning new support. And though we might lose a little support to the breakaway NNP, we are now in a position to grow our support base wider.
Those who argue that the DA is at a dead end are really saying that the entire opposition project in South Africa is dependent on Van Schalkwyk and his small band of fellow travellers. This is self-evidently absurd.
The future of the DA depends on one thing more than any other: the extent to which we can develop an identity that is attractive to those voters who have had enough of the ANC’s failures. That is our focus now. It is not an easy task, but we are united in our commitment to succeed.