DA’s circus of double standards and political deadwood

SOUTH African politics has never lacked drama. It is often tragic, messy, and unpredictable but thanks to the Democratic Alliance (DA), it also manages to be unintentionally comic.

- MHLABUNZIMA MEMELA

HELEN Zille has been nominated as DA mayoral candidate for Johannesburg. From Steenhuizen's hollow bravado to Zille's endless encore and Hoosen's recycled candidacy, the DA has perfected one thing: political theatre without meaning, says the writer. I ARMAND HOUGH Independent Newspapers

(ARMAND HOUGH Independent Newspapers)

Watching John Steenhuisen on a campaign stage these days is a bit like watching a Boerboel with no tail: plenty of noise and running around, but nothing much to show for it. Here is a man born in eThekwini, who still struggles to pronounce the names of the very communities that raised him, yet feels bold enough to declare that the African National Congress (ANC), the movement that liberated this country as “finished.” Steenhuisen delivers this claim with the misplaced confidence of someone trying to claim ownership of a pot of pap he neither cooked nor bought. He tells us how to eat pap and vleis when he cannot even braai a boerewors without setting the neighbour's fence alight. It would be amusing if it were not so transparent.

Steenhuisen’s political theatre is built on selective outrage, half-truths, and his party’s idea of leadership renewal borders on farce. The DA's magic trick is to parade a few Black faces for the photo opportunity, only to make them disappear soon after. It is as if Black leadership in the DA is a recipe they keep trying to perfect, one that never quite rises, no matter how many times they start again. Take eThekwini. When residents hoped for something fresh, the DA reached into its archives and pulled out Mohammed Haniff Hoosen. Yes, the same Hoosen who was paraded in 2015 as the DA's mayoral candidate for the 2016 elections. He lost then, and now, nearly a decade later, the party dusts him off like leftover pap and serves him again, claiming it’s a “new direction.”