Political parties are judged not only by the promises they make but by whether they govern according to the principles they demand of others. Nothing erodes political legitimacy faster than the widening gap between professed values and actual conduct.
For much of South Africa's democratic history, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has presented itself as the paragon of constitutional virtue and clean governance, a party committed to merit over patronage, accountability over impunity and clean governance over corruption. Its principal criticisms of the ANC centred on cadre deployment, factionalism, weak accountability and the subordination of state institutions to party interests. However, since tasting power, we have seen the DA’s growing inconsistency between principle and practice.
The closer the DA moves to the centre of power, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish its political practice from the principles it once condemned. Students of political science have long observed how the acquisition of power reshapes political behaviour. The German-Italian sociologist Robert Michels famously argued that political organisations inevitably develop an "iron law of oligarchy", a sociological theory that asserts that all organisations, even those explicitly founded on democratic principles, inevitably devolve into a self-serving elite rather than remaining faithful to their founding democratic principles. Lord Acton's enduring observation that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, was not merely a warning to governments. It was a warning to every political organisation that acquires power.
Every opposition party campaigns on the promise that it would govern differently and better. However, history repeatedly demonstrates that acquiring power tests political principles far more severely than opposing those who wield it. Today, the DA appears to be failing this test.
For years, the party argued that the ANC's cadre deployment policy undermined the principles of professionalism and merit-based public administration. It maintained that appointments to senior positions should be insulated from partisan political influence and made according to competence rather than political affiliation.
We now know that during the negotiations that delivered the Government of National Unity (GNU), the DA wanted an exclusive right to appoint Directors-General in departments under its political control. DA sympathisers would argue that their ministers require senior administrators they can trust. That may be a legitimate argument, but it mirrors the same rationale the ANC has long advanced and which the DA consistently rejected when it was in opposition. Constitutional principles cannot be defended in opposition only to be abandoned once in power.
The DA has also repeatedly accused the ANC of elevating political loyalty above institutional cohesion, yet its own internal divisions, leadership contests and high-profile departures resemble many of the dynamics it once portrayed as characteristic of the ANC.
After electing a new leader, the DA reshuffled its ministers, retaining loyalists while removing others, inviting comparisons with the post-conference reshuffles it has long criticised in the ANC. More significantly, the changes were not accompanied by objective performance assessments or clearly articulated reasons, something it consistently demanded from ANC presidents.
The same principle applies to accountability. The DA has consistently argued that public office demands public scrutiny and that no public official is above accountability. Those standards must now apply equally to the DA. Credibility is measured not only by demanding investigations into political opponents, but also by embracing scrutiny of its own conduct.
Perhaps the greatest test of the DA's constitutional commitment concerns the allegations surrounding Resolve Communications and Tony Leon. South Africans carry painful memories of state capture, making any hint of private interests influencing ministerial decisions a matter of profound public concern.
Damning allegations that Tony Leon pressured DA ministers and mayors to advance the interests of Resolve Communications' clients are difficult to shrug off. It is alleged that former Minister Dion George was removed from Cabinet, while John Steenhuisen was demoted, after refusing to succumb to similar pressure from Leon. Solly Malatsi is reportedly under pressure to amend regulations in ways that could benefit Starlink; his weak denials and deflection notwithstanding. He knows that failure to comply will earn him the same fate as those before him: dismissal, demotion or being shipped off to Harvard.
These allegations against Leon do not stand in isolation. Former Johannesburg Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba and former City of Tshwane Executive Mayor Solly Msimanga reportedly faced similar pressures to facilitate lucrative opportunities for clients.
Viewed collectively, these accounts reveal a pattern that demands public scrutiny. When senior political leaders, separated by time, office and circumstance, recount strikingly similar experiences of alleged attempts to influence executive decision-making on behalf of private interests, democratic accountability requires more than political denials. It requires transparency.
The Resolve Communications storm has invited comparisons with the Gupta era. Both raise similar constitutional questions about the integrity of democratic governance. As with the Guptas, Resolve Communications allegedly benefits from privileged access to senior political leaders, enabling it to lobby ministers on behalf of corporate clients while maintaining close proximity to political power.
At the heart of both controversies lies the same constitutional principle. When private commercial interests are perceived to influence public decision-making, the line between legitimate lobbying and elite capture becomes dangerously blurred. Intellectual honesty and consistency demand that one cannot condemn the Guptas while shielding Tony Leon.
Political analyst Ongama Mtimka captured the constitutional distinction succinctly: "When lobbying can be construed to have coercive power and ability to impose punitive measures if the bidding of the lobbyist is not done, it's no longer lobbying, it's capture. That's the test for judging what's ethical and what's permissible." The more Leon and his associates attempt to dismiss or deflect these allegations, the more they deepen public suspicion.
These allegations raise the spectre of a second state capture and warrant a full commission of inquiry. Given the revelations already in the public domain, it is reasonable to suspect that Leon has captured the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape government. Democracy is weakened not only by proven wrongdoing but also when credible allegations are ignored for political convenience. The DA built its political identity on exposing undue private influence over public power. It must therefore welcome rigorous scrutiny when similar allegations arise within its own ranks. Conduct condemned in opposition cannot become acceptable once a party acquires power.
Many have long argued that the DA harbours a desire to preserve apartheid-era privilege, despite its protestations. The party continues to preside over one of the world's most racially unequal cities. The recent Constitutional Court judgment makes clear that the DA-led City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Government have failed to fulfil their constitutional obligation to redress apartheid's spatial legacy through well-located affordable housing. A political party determined to preserve apartheid's spatial legacy cannot credibly claim to embody the Constitution's transformative vision.
Equally important is the consistency of media scrutiny. Many South Africans perceive that allegations involving the DA receive less sustained media attention than those involving the ANC, including persistent service delivery failures in Western Cape townships.
To illustrate this point, look no further than the media’s glaring double standard in its coverage of Dina Pule versus Leon’s scandals. One involves serious ethical misconduct, the other state capture. Both deserve scrutiny and neither deserves proximity to public office. Yet the mainstream media has cast Dina Pule as the real criminal, while some are granting Leon context and sympathy. When some parties enjoy reputational protection while others face relentless scrutiny, public confidence in the media inevitably suffers. No political party should be shielded from rigorous examination simply because it has cultivated a false image of clean governance.
The DA increasingly exhibits many of the political practices it historically condemned. Its greatest challenge is to demonstrate that, once entrusted with power, it consistently governs according to the constitutional principles and ethical standards it has demanded of others. It is on this test that the DA appears increasingly vulnerable.
South Africans deserve political parties that practice what they preach. History will judge political parties not by the standards they demand of their opponents, but by those they are willing to apply to themselves. The Tony Leon saga is a reminder that no political party is immune from the temptations of power or from the emergence of its own tenderpreneurs and networks of patronage.
Cornelius Monama is former national communication manager of the ANC and member of King Nyabela branch in Greater Tshwane Region. He writes in his personal capacity.