Barry Streek
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has admitted there are rumblings about his leadership of the party in the wake of last year’s walkout by the New National Party.
Expressions of discontent have emerged in the Western Cape and Gauteng regions of the DA, where Leon’s “abrasive” style and his “inaccessibility” have been criticised. Some members are unhappy with his perceived tendency to surround himself with like-minded lieutenants.
In Gauteng there is a perception that the DA has become excessively preoccupied with the Western Cape, where it has lost control of the provincial government and may take further losses in the Cape Town council.
However, party insiders believe Leon will be elected unchallenged when the DA is formally launched at a congress in Johannesburg in April.
Acknowledging the discontentment, Leon said he would “hope there is some rumbling in the party. I don’t like an unchallenged leader.” He accepted that he had to take responsibility for the expulsion of former Cape Town mayor Peter Marais, which precipitated the party split, and he accepted the court ruling that Marais had been illegally ousted. However, he insisted, he had acted on the best possible legal advice. Everyone, including NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk, knew there had been widespread criticism within the alliance of Marais’s role as mayor.
Leon acknowledged that the NNP breakaway has damaged the alliance, conceding that the DA would have to work hard this year to win back the support it won in the December 2000 local government elections and expand its support base among black voters.
The most immediate challenge will be the lifting of the anti-defection clause at local government level. This will enable NNP members to leave the DA, under whose banner they were elected, without losing their seats in the 21 councils the alliance controls in the Western Cape.
“On all available evidence, the bulk will remain with us,” Leon said, insisting that “I don’t want people to stay in the DA under sufferance”.
Seventy councillors will have to leave the DA to join the NNP or the ANC if it is to lose control of Cape Town. The DA calculates that between 12 and 15 councillors are on its “dodgy list”. It also believes the removal of floor-crossing restrictions at national level will lead to the defection of “about a dozen” NNP MPs in Parliament.