On August 11 2023 DA leader John Steenhuisen said President Cyril Ramaphosa was “spineless” because he had allegedly “undermined the rule of law to keep Jacob Zuma out of prison for political reasons”.
Well, when the SA cabinet holds its next meeting, there will be two spineless individuals in the gathering: Ramaphosa and the voluble but actionless Steenhuisen.
Last Thursday the DA made grave threats after Ramaphosa fired the deputy minister of trade & industry, Andrew Whitfield, for taking an unauthorised trip abroad.
Ramaphosa’s cabinet is so full of people who should be fired one has lost count, so we know that his firing of Whitfield has nothing to do with the rules, Whitfield’s insubordination, or clean governance.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and it will be revealed in what politicians like to call the fullness of time.
Anyway, Steenhuisen rushed for the microphones and warned that if the Whitfield “situation is not corrected it will go down as the greatest political mistake in modern SA history”.
He gave Ramaphosa 48 hours to reverse course and to fire at least three of his ministers implicated in corruption.
“If they fail to do so, the ANC will inflict grave consequences on SA,” he warned.
Come Saturday, with the nation gathered for Steenhuisen and his merry band of comrades to announce their exit from the year-old government of national unity, the DA leader unveiled what is possibly the limpest, most cowardly, political statement of the year.
Calling the DA spineless is actually an insult to all invertebrates — at least they have purpose.
The party announced that it would not participate in the upcoming national dialogue.
This is extraordinary.
No serious person has expressed any kind of conviction that this expensive, misdirected, talk shop was going to achieve anything anyway.
If the DA had any respect for itself, it would have announced ages ago — as the EFF’s Julius Malema has — that the national dialogue as it is now structured is a waste of time, effort and money.
Steenhuisen also announced that the DA would now withhold its votes for the budgets of departments presided over by corruption-accused ministers.
Blow me down — this party has already voted enthusiastically for the passing of the budget, ironically on the afternoon of Whitfield’s firing.
If these are the “grave consequences” that Steenhuisen warned us about on Thursday, then Ramaphosa and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula must have been laughing hysterically as they listened to the hapless DA leaders deliver what can only be called hot air for an hour on Saturday.
This was not a response: it was an embarrassment, a humiliation, a capitulation.
As the young people like to say, the ANC now “owns” the DA.
The reason the DA capitulated is not, as it may try to spin, because “we want to keep the ‘doomsday coalition’ of the ANC-EFF-MK party out of power”.
It is because the party now has no minimum principles, no bottom line, no “red lines”.
The DA cannot be trusted to stand up against corruption because it is happy to sit cheek by jowl with it in Ramaphosa’s cabinet.
And Ramaphosa and the ANC know it.
Like an abusive partner in a tragically bad marriage, the ANC knows it can now raise a hand to the DA and it will come back for whatever dreadful reason it may wish to concoct to justify its decision.
With Saturday’s announcement, the DA essentially stated out loud that it will stay in the GNU no matter how badly the ANC behaves.
DA federal chair Helen Zille told eNCA in April, at the height of the budget impasse, that her party would not leave the GNU.
Last week, as the Whitfield debacle unfolded, she tweeted: “I do not believe in walking away. That is defeat.
“Rather be fired than leave voluntarily. Fight to the end.”
Well, if walking away from a discredited-before-it-starts national dialogue is considered a “fight to the end” then we are all in trouble.
The GNU is a wonderful and necessary creation.
At this time in our democracy, it is the one key ingredient for us to revive this moribund economy.
Yet, for it to succeed, it must be handled with principle and care.
It cannot be allowed to become cover for the ANC to continue the practices which brought SA to its knees.
With its action this weekend, the DA has given the ANC a blank cheque.
It says to the ANC: Do as you please, and we will support you as you do so.
The DA is doing this at the expense of its own credibility.
Its actions have done absolutely nothing to make the ANC, and Ramaphosa, behave in the sort of consultative manner which shows that it is in a coalition government.
The DA has missed a golden opportunity to teach the ANC a lesson the ruling party needs.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.