It will be JZ versus HZ in the coming elections, if DA leader Helen Zille has her way.
The Mail & Guardian accompanied Zille on a whistlestop tour of Limpopo last weekend, when she offered residents an alternative to the ANC’s ”100% JZ” slogan — ”100% HZ”.
Replacing the ANC leader in the people’s affections is a distant dream in a province where, in 2004, the DA polled 3,8% to the ANC’s 89,2%.
Next to the tent erected for Zille’s election campaign address in Tshikota village outside Makhado young people went about their daily business, dancing to kwaito sounds, hardly raising an eyebrow at the DA delegation.
There was an equally modest turnout at ”rallies” in Namakgale near Phalaborwa, Musina and Makhado.
”We haven’t had rallies or mass meetings; we’ve had very specific and small events,” Zille said.
In Tshikota and Namakgale Zille insisted that the 80 000 turnout at a Zuma rally in East London should not be source of worry.
”Being in the majority does not necessarily mean that you’re right. In 10 years’ time or in 20 years, when we’re in government — and I know we will be — you will thank yourself for making the right choice.”
The party launched a branch in Namakgale with about 200 people present, but the DA leader was undaunted. ”I was delighted about the 70 new members of the 200 people there. That was a fantastic turnout for me in an area where we’ve never been able to start a branch.”
Quality, not quantity, is the watchword, she said. ”I don’t like to have more than 35 people in a branch, because otherwise you have huge numbers of people and the branch is carried by a few activists.
”I’d rather have people who are genuine activists and committed to taking the work of the party forward.”
The DA has identified Limpopo as a key growth area and has opened 96 branches in the province to date.
But Zille admitted the going was tough. ”In Limpopo the ANC is very, very, very strong. But we have to keep on presenting our vision of one nation and one future.
”The choice is between the closed crony society for some and an open opportunity society for all,” she said.
Zille and Desiree van der Walt, DA MP and the party’s Limpopo chairperson, were partly thwarted by the language barrier. Although a fluent isiXhosa speaker, she does not speak seSotho and was forced to communicate via a translator. She told the M&G her party would prioritise job creation, economic growth, education, crime and healthcare.
”The only sustainable strategy for dealing with unemployment is to have an economy that is growing,” she said. The DA also believed in ”the basic income grant as a safety net”. She described affirmative action as a ”fiddly” cover for the ANC’s deployment policy. ”It’s got nothing to do with empowering black people, it’s a nice-sounding, moral-sounding phrase that covers a very corrupt practice.”
Zille insisted she was not concerned about the loss or impending loss of senior DA leaders — former parliamentary chief whip Douglas Gibson, parliamentary leader Sandra Botha and justice spokesperson Sheila Camerer — to serve abroad as ambassadors.
”There’s a queue of quality at the door and nobody is indispensable. [Gibson] was in his late sixties; being a diplomat is a very nice point of closure for a career. Sheila Camerer is [in her sixties] as well and Sandra Botha in her early sixties.
”So I certainly think they could have all had another term in Parliament, no question, but they made a choice that they want to cap their careers with another challenge.”