Tony Leon is assured of continued leadership of the official opposition Democratic Alliance because there is no one else in the party ready — or willing — to fill his shoes.
This is the overwhelming consensus among public representatives after it was reported this week that former Western Cape education minister Helen Zille had been approached by public representatives to run against him at the party’s congress on November 20 in Durban. Zille made it clear she would not stand.
If there is a struggle in the years ahead, it will probably be because Leon feels his battle has been won.
One former MP said: “He really wanted the leadership, but at some point he will also have to decide to call it a day. Now may not be the time.”
Veteran liberal politician Helen Suzman said: “There is really no one to take Tony’s place at the present time. Tony has done an excellent job. There are not many people who would have put up with the conditions (of constant hectoring) in Parliament. He has withstood some very tough guns in Parliament. This is not the time to go around looking for anybody [else].”
Pressed on how long he could be expected to carry on, Suzman said he should serve at least two terms as official opposition leader. It would then depend on whether there was someone else available — perhaps in 2009 when President Thabo Mbeki also ends his second and last term. Leon became official opposition leader in 1999.
Meanwhile, the contest at the congress has shifted to whether former Western Cape Premier Gerald Morkel and Gauteng MP Dan Maluleke will be re-elected as vice-chairpersons — along with Zille. Morkel has slipped into an obscure position as a councillor in Cape Town.
The debate at the congress in November will turn instead to “breaking the next frontier”, as one MP put it, after Leon had led the party to improved positions in two national elections and two municipal elections — off a base of less than 2% to more than 12% of the national vote today.
Some of the trends are worrying — such as the loss of municipal by-elections, notably the recent one in Vanderbiljpark in which the DA’s black candidate was defeated by a white Freedom Front Plus candidate in what had been a safe ward. However, some in the party, including Free State leader Andries Botha, who is expected to be re-elected as provincial leader soon, said the debate about leadership was “ludicrous”.
Leon had taken the party from “fringe” status “and today it is a serious party, it is official opposition and the only viable opposition and contender for political power”.
He added that the party was getting far more black votes than Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats. “I know for a fact there is no thought of a leadership struggle. Tony has done a magnificent job.”
There was also no question of replacing him with a black leader, or a woman or an Afrikaner, said Botha. “The majority of Afrikaans-speakers vote for the DA now. Tony is English-speaking. No leader has achieved what he has achieved in the history of this country. Clearly, people couldn’t care a damn what the home-language of the person is.”
Botha believed the Freedom Front Plus of Dr Pieter Mulder had enjoyed a bubble of by-election support and this would not be repeated in next year’s municipal election. He said Mulder wanted “to sit on Thabo’s lap and say: be nice to me.” Leon was not that sort of leader.