‘DA's ideological ambition to erase race from the grammar of justice’

THE DA has released its economic policy document, “The DA’s Plan to Turbocharge the Economy”, which is widely viewed as an antithesis to black economic empowerment (BEE) and a sharp ideological departure from the ANC’s developmental policy framework implemented over the past 30 years.

- ZAMIKHAYA MASETI

DA FEDERAL Council chairperson and Johannesburg 2026 mayoral candidate Helen Zille unveiled her party's billboard on Tuesday in Sandton. The billboard's messaging is in support of its proposed amendments to BBBEE legislation.

(X/DA)

The document advances a liberal economic thesis grounded in deregulation, market openness and fiscal restraint. Yet beneath its managerial confidence lies a deeper ideological ambition — to redefine transformation by erasing race from the grammar of justice. While the DA’s model may accelerate efficiency, it risks reproducing the structural inequalities that have haunted South Africa since 1910.

It situates this argument within the intellectual interventions of Moeletsi Mbeki, Duma Gqubule and William Gumede, whose analyses reveal the moral, structural and political failures of BEE.

South Africa's political economy remains caught between two imperatives — redress and growth. The ANC, now a principal player within the Government of National Unity, continues to defend the developmental state model it has pursued since 1994, a vision anchored in state-led inclusion, industrial policy and redistribution.

The DA, conversely, advances a liberal market agenda that seeks to diminish state intervention, amplify private enterprise, and restore investor confidence through deregulation and fiscal prudence. Beneath these competing paradigms lies a fundamental question: Can growth and equity coexist, or must one triumph over the other?

It was Moeletsi Mbeki who, long before the current policy debates, warned that the BEE project had degenerated into an elite pact between the political class and established capital.