It’s been quite a week for the so-called Blue Machine, hey?
Just how far-reaching the damage done is remains to be seen, and we may only know a few months or years from now, but the DA is in the midst of a crisis.
Whilst Patricia de Lille might be enjoying herself (dancing and alles), I can’t help but feel she missed a trick with the song she chose.
Enter Zapiro, who has nit the nail on the head with his latest cartoon on the Daily Maverick.
It’s impossible to look at this without wanting to belt out the tune:
That’s a Miley Cyrus reference, for all the ‘out of touch with the youth’ Helen Zille fans.
As this mess unfolded, you just knew Richard Poplak would be sharpening his tools, and early this morning his scathing column went live on the Daily Maverick.
Yes, it was in the Morning Spice as well, but we’ll save you reading the entire piece if you’re pressed for time.
He really, really didn’t hold back, calling Zille “a white supremacist “classically liberal” social media ghoul” (sheesh), but there were some pearls of wisdom in amongst the fury:
Her opponent in 2009 and 2014 was Jacob Zuma, a globally recognised symbol of misgovernance and corruption, and literally the best gift the political gods could offer an opposition politician. (In short: if you couldn’t grow your share of votes against that useless asshole, pick another profession.)
What’s more, there was nowhere else for black liberals to call home. The DA would have to do, but it was apparently never a comfortable space to inhabit…
The DA’s top-out range was always going to be around 28% of the national vote, which—let’s be honest—is an objectively amazing place to be. At the zenith of their power and success—which coincided with the nadir of the Zuma era—the DA could have run the Western Cape, Gauteng, and the four big metros…
The DA project hasn’t been a complete failure. Not even close. Think of the passionate MPs, MECs and municipal functionaries who have done great work holding a larcenous regime to account. Think of Jack Bloom breaking the Life Esidimeni mass murders, and his tireless work in the Gauteng healthcare nightmare-scape. Think of Maimane’s thrilling “broken man” speech. Think of Phumzile van Damme and her legal team taking down Bell Pottinger; think of her doggedness in trying to mend the SABC. Think of formal-education-less John Steenhuisen, who as chief whip displayed dazzling skills in Parliament. Think of erstwhile former federal council chair James Selfe, who understood the value of lawfare as a political weapon. Thousands of activists on the ground, hundreds of parliamentary committees, countless successful court cases against a ruling party that was somewhat held in check by their exertions. They have contributed, and contributed massively, to this democracy.
So something terrible has happened on the way to the hollowing out of the DA: the articulation of a South African tragedy. As a senior black DA leader once told me:
“I just don’t know if there’s any point in building a multiracial anything in South Africa.”
The DA is proof that, culturally and racially, South Africa has not progressed much at all; black and white South Africans are separated by a gulf so wide it appears forever unbridgeable. Helen Zille has chosen to embody this divide. The DA is now hers, once again—at last count, she fills pretty much every major leadership position, which happily includes Social Media Policy Chief. Zille has everything she wants, and yet she holds nothing in her hands but ashes.
Will DA members look back in years to come, and see Zille’s return to the party as a seminal moment in their history?
You would imagine more than a few are already feeling the pinch, and some party insiders say we may still see more resignations before the month is out.
I’ll say it one more time – all the decent people of South Africa ask for is one well-run, inclusive, opposition party. Is that really too much to ask for?
