WORLDVIEW: With the DA collapsing, can the centre hold?

Like the song says, it's all over but the crying. Mmusi Maimane announced on Thursday that he is leaving the DA and Parliament altogether, joining the likes of Herman Mashaba, Patricia de Lille, and Lindiwe Mazibuko as prominent party exiles. The DA is now effectively leaderless and, apparently, all at sea..The move has created serious procedural challenges for the DA – in the absence of an official leader and, thanks to Athol Trollip's resignation, a chair, the DA is now technically leaderless and all its political appointments have been voided. The party will need a national congress to elect an all-new leadership..But the problem is more than procedural. In fact, the whole political DNA of the DA is in flux. What happens next may see the hopes of a competitive centre in SA politics further diminished..___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Zille's return.When Helen Zille unexpectedly stood for and won the DA's federal chairmanship, it sent a strong signal that the party membership was ready to head in a more conservative direction, after moving more towards the centre under Maimane (in SA, the centre is fairly left-leaning, in some other places, the centre is more right-leaning – the important thing for political strategists is to know where the centre is in your country)..Now, Zille has defended herself in the last few days, pointing out that she is less right-leaning than Herman Mashaba on some issues. And some within the DA, like Gwen Ngwenya, have struck back against the idea that we're seeing a "black exodus" from the party, pointing out that the party retains many black politicians and supporters..These are all fair points. But for a moment, let's stop being political and just be honest. To the casual observer, it seems clear what has happened. Maimane took up the leadership of the party and, among other things, softened its position on racially-based redress measures like affirmative action – a policy which, incidentally, enjoys widespread support in SA and has for a long time. There was also Zille's colonial tweetstorm and the Elana Barkhuizen controversy..Unsurprisingly, some of the DA's white supporters didn't like all this. They abandoned ship and headed for white nationalist FF+ – suggesting that perhaps they were not actually interested in a non-racial SA, but rather an SA that didn't do anything to hurt white interests..These lost votes were not compensated for by gains among well-to-do black voters who, for the most part, seem to mistrust the DA and see it as a party of white interests – and who also seem to be returning to the ANC fold now that Ramaphosa is in charge anyway. Net result: A fall in the DA's vote share..Now, the party could have responded to this development in two ways. They could double down on broadening their appeal and diversifying their base, seeking ways to build trust with black voters by embracing broadly supported centrist policies. Or, they could abandon their shift to the centre and instead move more to the right, to try to recapture their lost white voters. They seem to be choosing the latter option..To be clear, both are legitimate choices. In democracies, minority rights are important, and the world has many ethnic parties that seek to protect the rights of a minority. Indeed, that is the explicit goal of the FF+, to protect white interests..On the other hand, only one of these paths leads to building a party with a hope of winning a national election..As a white minority party, the best the DA can hope for is to take the lion's share of the white vote, leaving something over for the FF+ and a few other smaller parties. This could give it a cap of, say 18-20% of the vote (assuming that some Coloured and Indian/Asian voters stick with the party if it goes this direction). This is a solid vote share and will ensure that the DA as seats in parliament and a say in policy..Depending on how things shake out, the DA may even one day play a role in forming a coalition government, perhaps with the ANC as the ANC loses support to the EFF. But it won't ever be a majority party..More to the point, if the DA edges over to be a kind of FF+ lite, that will leave a hold in the right bit of the centre in SA politics. There will be no obvious party for people who want more pro-market policies than those on offer from the ANC, but who also recognise that racial issues are a reality in SA and are not going to go away soon..The DA's shift to the right will also take the pressure of the ANC. For a while, the ANC was losing voters to either end of the spectrum – to the DA on the right and the EFF on the left. But with the DA heading closer to the FF+, the ANC can stop worrying about losing centrist black voters – where would they go? Instead, it can focus on defending itself to the left, which means that SA's political centre (that is, the point where voters are concentrated) will shift even further left..The DA is free to plot its political destiny. But it must recognise that for a majority of South African voters, pro-colonial messages and a thinned rank of black leaders are simply not going to cut it. The DA may wish for an electorate that wholeheartedly embraces hard libertarianism. Unfortunately, such an electorate does not exist in SA. By ceding the centre-right territory and shifting rightward and "whiteward", the DA is, essentially, abandoning the fight for the majority of voters.

WORLDVIEW: With the DA collapsing, can the centre hold?

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