John Steenhuisen’s decision to remove Roman Cabanac has done little to quell scepticism about his leadership. The backlash over Cabanac’s appointment revealed gaps in Steenhuisen’s judgment and foresight. Despite acknowledging mistakes, Steenhuisen’s failure to act promptly or convincingly only fueled further discontent. With internal and external criticism mounting, the DA faces scrutiny over its leadership choices and candidate selection, raising questions about the party’s future direction and effectiveness.
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By RW Johnson
John Steenhuisen’s decision – finally – to disembarrass himself of Roman Cabanac – has not removed the doubts lingering about his leadership. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___ Steenhuisen’s explanation of the whole Cabanac affair left many gaps. “I’m happy to admit we don’t always get it right” he said. “…I think you should be judged on what you do when that mistake has been made – it’s been pointed out to you – and what you do thereafter.” But the minute that Cabanac’s appointment was announced there was a furious reaction both from within the DA and outside it. Steenhuisen continued to insist on the appointment and even Cabanac came forward to justify himself. It was all utterly hopeless. Helen Zille then made it perfectly plain how completely she dissented from the appointment and there was literally no one in the DA willing to speak up for Steenhuisen. Only after this row had gone on for over a week and showed no sign of subsiding did Steenhuisen finally act.Â
In self-justification Steenhuisen added that “In hindsight there should’ve been a little bit more due diligence done. In hindsight, there should have been greater foresight. But in an environment of a meteor shower coming in after an election, going straight into an intense negotiation, and having an imperative to start performing and doing your duties, I think one could be forgiven slightly for some of the mistakes that do get made along the way”.
This is, of course, ridiculous. The very instant that Cabanac’s appointment was announced the DA was in uproar. Nobody needed any foresight or hindsight to know that appointing a right wing shock jock was disastrously out of keeping with everything the DA stands for. None of the other DA ministers made such an extraordinary blunder. As for the “meteor shower” that is just in Steenhuisen’s head, perhaps something to do with a Moonshot, but nobody else noticed it.
But the most upsetting thing for DA loyalists is that when someone selects a chief of staff they are choosing someone who they will see and interact with more than any other member of staff and people generally choose someone whom they find congenial, whose intelligence and advice they trust and someone they will find it easy to spend time with. That is, Steenhuisen must have noticed Cabanac’s podcasts, liked them or found them amusing and been impressed by his intelligence. This is likely to be the impression left in the minds of most DA activists and it is deeply damaging for Steenhuisen.
The fact that, almost simultaneously with Cabanac’s dismissal, the DA expelled Renaldo Gouws both as an MP and from the party altogether made it clear how utterly the party rejects right wing shock jocks. (Gouws said he found this “disheartening”, but then he would, wouldn’t he ?) Which makes it all the more uncomfortable that the party leader clearly has quite opposite tastes. Moreover, the saga may not be over: if Cabanac digs his heels in his dismissal could drag on for quite a while and be horribly expensive.
A little while ago, in one of his columns in Business Day, Peter Bruce wrote that Steenhuisen had informed the DA leadership group that he intended to stand down as leader by the time of the next party conference. Bruce added diplomatically that Steenhuisen “was not particularly popular” and that the party would vastly prefer Geordin Hill-Lewis. It was odd that this scoop was there in the middle of a column, with no headline, but it was odder still that the rest of the media entirely ignored this important piece of information. No one has even asked Hill-Lewis how he feels about it all, though he would surely be ill-advised to forsake the mayoralty of Cape Town where he has barely begun to put his stamp on things.
What it really boils down to is that the DA has picked two dud leaders in a row – Mmusi Maimane and then Steenhuisen. Who is to blame for that ? I am frequently told by DA old stagers that there is little talent on the DA’s parliamentary benches but I find it hard to believe that with 87 MPs to choose from that there is no one who stands out. After all, several of the DA ministers – and some of the DA provincial ministers in the Western Cape and in KwaZulu-Natal – have performed well so far and are clearly people of worth. And Cilliers Brink, the mayor of Tshwane, is clearly a brave and able man.
But if there really is a paucity of talent, it suggests that there is something terribly wrong with the DA’s candidate selection – and the selection of Renaldo Gouws as a Parliamentary candidate rather supports that conclusion. But in any political party for leadership candidates to emerge there has normally to be a rough consensus among the rest of the leadership group. That is just the way these things work. So the whole leadership group – Helen Zille and the federal executive – must take responsibility for the mess of two dud leaders in a row. And they will certainly have to take the lead in what happens next.
The problem is that the DA leadership is a tough and unrewarding job. On the one hand the party wants the leader to articulate an inspiring liberal vision of the future and the party’s role in it. Only Jan Steytler and Van Zyl Slabbert have really done this – and Slabbert then wrecked it all with his resignation. But the DA is also by far the most multiracial party in South Africa so the leader must carefully balance these disparate elements and be sensitive to the sensibilities of the various groups. Mmusi Maimane completely ignored the feelings of Afrikaners and reverted to his knee-jerk ANC assumptions that if Afrikaners were involved in any issue, they were likely to be in the wrong. The Afrikaans community was not slow to sense this complete lack of sympathy and deserted the DA in numbers, summarily ending Maimane’s leadership. But all the other groups are equally sensitive, so a DA leader is a cat on a hot tin roof.
Moreover the DA is, in a sense, the only proper democratic party. The ANC has long been completely dependent on the patronage that power allows and its conferences are really just auctions with huge amounts of money changing hands. That is how all important positions are settled. Ramaphosa is president simply because he had collected so much money from his corporate supporters that he was able to out-bid Zuma. The MKP, EFF and Action SA are all one-man shows with permanent unelected leaders. In effect Good, Bosa and Rise Mzansi are all much the same. Which leaves the DA, which alone holds proper elective conferences, where positions are not bought and sold and where the party goes on whoever the leader is. This is something to be proud of but it also means a DA leader acts under a whole series of constraints that do not apply elsewhere.
So if the DA leadership is to be open again fairly soon one should have some sympathy for whoever emerges. It has the initial glamour of being No.1 but there are few tangible gains to be realised and it is one of the hardest jobs in South African politics.
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