What exactly is the DA’s problem?

The Democratic Alliance’s federal congress must decide not only who should lead the party during the critical phase in the democratic evolution, but how it should be led, and with what strategic objectives

Since its inception in 2000, the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) core political proposition has been that for South Africa to prosper the ANC’s electoral dominance must be brought to an end. 

How lofty an ambition that seemed in 2004, when the ANC received almost 70% of the vote and then proceeded to maintain its support at over 60% for another decade thereafter.

Now, the ANC beast is all but slain. But will the DA reap the reward? 

The DA has proved to be an effective and resilient opposition party during three decades of ANC dominance.

The ANC’s decline is partly because of self-inflicted wounds, but also because the opposition has held it to account for its manifold failures. 

The DA deserves credit for its role in this process; for having stuck with the at times thankless task of being in opposition during such a period in history. 

It was not easy; there were difficult moments of extreme frustration: “How can they keep voting ANC?” To DA leaders the electoral dominance of the ANC has appeared like a victory of irrational historical fidelity over current realities and reason. 

Now, however, the over-riding task of the DA is precisely the same as it is for all of us: to recalibrate our analytical lens in light of this shift in South African politics. 

The second transition is well under way, and the DA needs to get with the project, because the interesting irony is that having made a substantial contribution to securing a competitive multiparty democracy, with the ANC finally tottering on the brink of electoral defeat, the DA’s major concern should be its fellow opposition parties, not the ruling party. 

The decline of the ANC will take care of itself from now on. Having lost its majority next year, it may well go into free fall. 

Who will benefit? Politics is unsentimental. The electorate may not reward the DA for its endurance. There are other kids on the block now. Some of them are eating into the DA’s base — whether ActionSA in Gauteng, the Patriotic Alliance (PA) in the Western Cape, or the continued resurgence of the Freedom Front Plus. 

The rise of populist forces — inevitable, perhaps, given South Africa’s socioeconomic precarity — is a threat to those parties, like the DA, that want to defend liberal values and the rule of law. 

When people are desperate, exhausted by lack of economic opportunity, rising unemployment and ferocious levels of crime and gender-based domestic violence, then simplistic messages resonate. 

Blame the foreigners and send them back to Zimbabwe. Teach only Christianity at school. Let the vigilantes sort out the gangsters. 

These are xenophobic and illiberal calls to action that are sounding out around the country, and which are part of the emerging post-ANC dominance political landscape. 

Hence, the next threat to the Constitution comes not from within the ANC, with the state capture brigade — although some factions in the ANC will loot as they leave power — but from political snake oil salesmen like the PA’s Gayton McKenzie, who exploit people’s worst fears and appeal to the lowest common denominator in society. 

Next it will be blame all the homosexuals. Or the Jews. The road to hell is paved with fascist demagogues. 

Suddenly, the DA’s shortcomings can be put into a wider perspective. But here’s the painful paradox that the DA must confront. Its future trajectory as a party will not be determined by how the ANC performs so much as by how it — the DA — handles the cluttered, and rugged, new landscape, as well as its fellow opposition parties. 

This weekend’s federal congress provides the DA with a moment to reset its political strategy. But it may be no less preoccupied with the stuff of power and positions than the ANC was in December at its five-yearly national conference. 

On that score, there is not much to write home about. The ruling cabal in the DA will win again; there is no serious threat to John Steenhuisen as leader, nor to Helen Zille, the power behind the throne. 

Will the party take the time to reflect on the new challenge presented by the second transition? Do they have the mindset or skills to adapt to the new reality, and to rebrand, as required? 

Herein lies a variation of the same strategic choice that has bedevilled the DA since the early 2000s. In the 1990s it was a tiny, but extraordinarily effective, mosquito; the nine members of the Democratic Party (DP), as it then was, ran rings around both the ANC and the National Party in the first democratic parliament. They punched far above their weight, with a sharply defined liberal agenda. 

When the National Party packed it in around the turn of the century, the then leader of the DP, Tony Leon, seized the moment for growth, mainly through disaffected white, Indian and, especially, coloured voters. 

But he got greedy and began to over-egg his pudding, making exaggerated claims about winning national power. Leon’s DA tried to run before it could walk. Zille 1.0 took over and instituted a far smarter strategy: build the DA’s case for government province by province, city hall by city hall. 

The strategy was rewarded, and electoral growth came, now with Mmusi Maimane at the helm, and reached the dizzying heights of 27% in the 2016 watershed local government election. 

But then they got greedy again, in 2019, with unreasonable hopes of finally breaking the glass ceiling and getting to 30% — dreams that were sorely dashed by the ANC’s Ramaphosa-led bounceback. 

The DA’s old guard panicked and threw the baby (Maimane) out with the bathwater. A mistake. Since then the party has been shedding black leaders and voters. 

The unresolved strategic dilemma is this: how to reconcile two competing imperatives. One, a golden rule of politics, look after your base; the other, to develop a political value proposition (and a messaging and leadership style) that will appeal to the majority of voters. 

Every time the DA has tried to serve the latter objective, it has undermined its ability to honour the former principle, and has thus quickly pivoted back to its “base”.

The task of building support among the black electorate has been made harder by the style and tone of the new DA’s national leadership, more than their skin colour — Chris Pappas has shown in the uMngeni municipality that white politicians can win black support if they can win the trust of the electorate.

In the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town, the DA has two leaders with a very different way of communicating. Steady, decent and reasonable, in the case of Premier Alan Winde; agile, adaptive and emotionally intelligent, in the case of mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis. 

Interestingly, and not coincidentally, the DA’s apparent best value proposition is that where it is in power it governs well. 

As public services collapse across the country, this may well be a very compelling value proposition — for all voters. 

The challenge is that it has yet to prove that it can do this for working-class black communities as well as it does for core voters in minority communities — which takes one back to the underling core strategic dilemma. 

Perhaps its most valuable role, and ambition, should be to be the leading player in the “blue alliance” of parties that is beginning to solidify (comprising the DA, ActionSA, Inkatha Freedom Party, Freedom Front Plus and the African Christian Democratic Party). 

But it would need to draw the line somewhere, lest it betray its core liberal values. It should have nothing to do with the PA, for example; it should not adapt its strategy to please or corral bad actors. 

It should align only with those who share its core values and it should focus on fixing its brand, because this is the DA’s main problem. 

It should focus on hushing the growing right-wing voices in the DA itself. It should rediscover its Progressive Federal Party roots, and work harder to figure out how modern liberalism can serve contemporary South Africa. 

It should focus on earning the trust of black voters who are understandably sceptical of being led by white people again. 

It should show more compassion and a gentler touch. It should elect leaders that can relate to South Africans across race and class, with empathy and authenticity. 

The DA’s federal congress will need to be mindful of these considerations as it decides not only who should lead the party at this critical time, but how it should be led, and what its strategic objectives should be. 

This is not an easy nettle to grasp, but it will have to be grasped. Otherwise, the DA may find that its future lies behind it.