Sticking to liberalism will not get the DA in power, says Moeletsi Mbeki

The well-known political economist explains why the DA needs to break with its philosophical core if it wants to win votes in South Africa. By Gabriel Makin

- Gabriel Makin

(Illustration: Midjourney AI)

When Moeletsi Mbeki speaks, it is with the measured certainty of someone who has seen the cycles of South African politics repeat themselves. In a recent interview with him, Mbeki wasted no time tracing the roots of the country's political malaise back to 1994.

"The African middle class took power," he began, "and their biggest mistake was to focus on developing the middle class instead of the black masses."

The ANC had decided to focus on developing the welfare of the African middle class through two policies: black economic empowerment in the private sector and affirmative action in the public sector. Initially, it had sold this strategy as aiming for the advancement of all black people, but coloured people and Indians soon realised that they had been left out. That is why they joined the DA, Mbeki said.

The result was an ANC that "has alienated first the coloured population, the Indian population, the white population, and now they have alienated the mass of the African population. So that is why it lost power, and that is why it can never get power back."

He described the former governing party as "petering out", noting that "most of the new parties ... have ANC roots. So the ANC is dying and it is splintering."

When I turned the question to the DA's future, Mbeki replied: "That is really the big question in South Africa today. Now, I have no crystal ball — maybe John Steenhuisen has one or even Helen Zille - but I have not got one."

Then came his unflinching assessment: "Liberalism in South Africa is a white, English-speaking people's ideology. It is not an African ideology; it is not a coloured ideology."

Folly of liberalism