The ascendancy of Jacob Zuma to the leadership of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) would be “to the massive political advantage” of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the party’s leader, Tony Leon, said on Friday.
Writing in his weekly newsletter on the DA website, the DA leader said that Zuma as ANC leader “would not be in the national interest as we have explicitly stated on many occasions”.
Leon announced recently that he would be standing down as leader in May next year.
Leon said his successor would “need the wisdom to discern when support for the government is appropriate even though this is seldom, if ever, reciprocated”.
While he did not name specific individuals as a potential successor, he said the person should have a “sense of humour” and not take him or herself too seriously.
With regard to a leader’s character, he said “flaws become fissures. In this regard, I know whereof I speak. People do not change fundamentally, although responsibility can have a very temping effect”.
In a message to his party faithful, he said: “Therefore choose the right candidate who has a sense of proportion: under pressure of the top, your vices are cruelly exposed to public display.”
Leon — who has taken his party’s support from 1,7% in 1994 to 15% in the recent local government elections and to official opposition from 1999 — argued that South African politics was a tough-minded business.
“While it is important to empathise with people on the ground, it is not the business of opposition to be loved by the government. If you forsake your core base, you will land up with nothing.”
He cited the instructive example of Roelf Meyer.
“Whilst secretary general of the National Party, he once told his party that their supporters ‘had no option but to stick with the NP because there was no one else to vote for’. While he went in search of a new and non-existent constituency, his party’s support-base defected en bloc.”
“This does not mean that the leader does not have to build a new constituency; indeed, the party must elect someone who can do that. Yet you must keep your base in politics.”
Meyer formed the United Democratic Movement with Bantu Holomisa but later left Parliament and joined the ANC.
In an apparent reference to the need for a black DA leader, Leon said: “Of course the party needs to be made even more representative of South Africa as a whole. This of course will actually increase the demands of leadership, for as the numbers grow, the complexities increase.
“Accordingly, you cannot afford to be hostage to any one strand, but need to do the right thing by all of them.” ‒ I-Net Bridge