By Alec Hogg
Abraham Lincoln is widely acknowledged among his countrymen as America’s greatest statesman – the inverse, you might argue, of Donald Trump. Though their ethics and morals were poles apart, Honest Abe and The Donald both appreciate this: in a democracy, politicians must “educate” and listen closely to public opinion.
Lincoln succinctly stated: “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.” In other words, win the hearts and minds of your society and anything is possible. Without it, nothing is.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___After Monday’s interview with PA leader Gayton McKenzie, my colleague Chris Steyn received a belligerent missive accusing her of engaging in “dangerous misinformation”. Her apparent crime was allowing McKenzie to share how his ANC pals told him of three ANC/DA meetings to discuss a post-2024 coalition.
Whether or not McKenzie was himself being played matters not. That story won’t have sat well with participants ahead of this week’s key Moonshot Pact summit. If true, it makes the Pact an exercise in futility. If false, the DA must respond by answering Herman Mashaba’s call and co-sign a pledge to NOT partner the ANC.
It is eminently rational for the DA to tell us (as Helen Zille did at BNC#5) that partnering the ANC would be a last resort, “the least worst outcome”, to avoid a post-2024 ANC/EFF nightmare coalition. Such talk is no longer an option. The DA must now publicly distance itself from that thought and dispense with all ambiguity.
If not, its enemies (like McKenzie) will continue to eat away at the credibility of a Pact, which, all going well this week, has a fighting chance next year of achieving the Parliamentary majority the nation deserves. For the vast majority seeking change in SA, rejecting the ANC, in Lincoln’s words, is demanded “by the public sentiment”.
Sterkte
Alec
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