After the sacking of former trade, industry & competition deputy minister Andrew Whitfield for unauthorised travel last week, DA leader John Steenhuisen was all thunder and lightning when he gave President Cyril Ramaphosa just 48 hours to fire a string of errant ANC ministers or suffer the consequences of “the greatest political mistake in modern SA history”.
Amazingly, words still mean something to South Africans, and for a moment there he held the country in his hands.
Ramaphosa, who was never going to respond to the ultimatum, even cancelled a trip abroad in the expectation — shared quite reasonably by anyone who had watched Steenhuisen’s performance — that the DA might leave the government of national unity (GNU).
But when he stood to announce the punishment the DA would mete out it was a painful surrender both to Ramaphosa and to political reality.
The “greatest mistake” would now be met with a refusal to participate in the coming “national dialogue”, which few people even know about, a threat to vote against the budgets of tainted ministers and a threat to bring a motion of no confidence against Ramaphosa in parliament.
Well, the dialogue will go on with or without the DA, and should Steenhuisen dishonour his appointment by Ramaphosa to a cabinet committee on the dialogue, he risks being fired as well.
If the DA votes against the budgets of selected ANC ministers, the ANC will vote against DA ministerial budgets. And a motion of no confidence is perilous.
To lose would be humiliating and winning would usher deputy president Paul Mashatile into the Union Buildings, an event that would entirely demolish the DA’s credibility.
But almost worse than the retreat, Steenhuisen prefaced his response to the Whitfield firing with an extraordinary analysis of 2024’s elections.
This is what he said: “A year ago, the formation of the multiparty coalition known as the GNU filled our country with hope.
“It followed the decision by the people of SA to remove the outright majority that the ANC had held since the dawn of our democracy in 1994.
“In last year’s election the people sent a clear message that they no longer wanted the ANC to do as they pleased, regardless of the consequences for our country.
“The people said, loudly and clearly, that they were tired of corruption, of unemployment, and of an economy that had not grown meaningfully for more than a decade.
“Instead of the same old one-party domination, the people wanted multiparty collaboration.
“In short, South Africans voted for things to change.”
This is wildly inaccurate. The people didn’t say loudly or clearly that they were tired of corruption. Nor did they vote for change or, if they did, it wasn’t the DA they turned to.
The total DA vote in 2024 was 115,676 votes down on what Musi Maimane won in 2019, though its share of votes cast was slightly higher, rising from 20.77% to 21.81%.
What happened in 2024 was that the vote for corruption, unemployment and low growth was split, with Jacob Zuma’s new MK party winning 14.58% of the vote and the ANC collapsing down to 40.18%.
Nowhere in this story is the country beginning to turn.
The election outcome may have created a gap for the DA to get into government, but Steenhuisen’s distorted conclusions would have you believe it was a vote for change for the best.
It wasn’t. The fact is the DA performed poorly.
Over the years, the African “nationalist” vote has been remarkably stable.
In 2009, the ANC won 66% of the vote, in 2014 the ANC and the EFF took 68.5%, and did exactly the same in 2019.
In 2024, the ANC, MK and EFF together took 64%.
Someone said recently the most valuable skill in politics was the ability to count.
• Bruce is a former editor of Business Day and the Financial Mail.
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