True test for DA mettle

What transpires at Wednesday's second attempt at a budget speech will show whether the DA is at last significantly shaping some aspects of national policy, as opposed to just helping a disastrous government to operate more efficiently.

- William Saunderson-Meyer

The DA's refusal to pass Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana's annual budget because of its proposed "anti-poor" two percentage point increase in VAT rocked the ANC.

It seemed that at last the DA had a populist issue over which it could dig in, an issue that couldn't be dismissed as yet another example of the DA's supposed "nostalgia for apartheid".

Any ANC retreat on the budget would be a rare victory for the DA. Until now, the DA's most significant government of national unity (GNU) achievement has been the one that drove it to join in the first place: to keep out the radicals of MK Party and the EFF.

For the rest, it's been a somewhat disappointing performance.

The greatest embarrassment has been its "red lines" on the Basic Education Laws Amendment and Expropriation Acts, which turned out to have all the durability of chalk in a thunderstorm.