IMRAAN BUCCUS: Suicidal drift by DA leader John Steenhuisen

DA leader John Steenhuisen’s decision to appoint Roman Cabanac as his chief of staff in the agriculture ministry is a staggering error of judgment.

It will leave a permanent stain on his reputation, and that of his party. It also compromises the standing of the government of national unity (GNU) and is a gift to the kleptocratic and authoritarian nationalists who have remained outside the GNU.

Though Cabanac has now deleted most of his tweets on X, screenshots have been widely circulated. Many of his public statements have been extremely disturbing. He has, for instance, stated that “Bantu people, much like Arabs, are not democratic people”. This is a patently racist statement, one that shows a complete lack of understanding of SA history. It was, after all, the mass democratic struggles of the largely black United Democratic Front and black trade unions that brought democracy to SA.

Cabanac has also made sexist statements, appeared to flirt with the SA white genocide conspiracy theory, and to have questioned the well documented facts of the Sharpeville massacre. He is openly supportive of the US alt right and, on his podcast, hosted a far right extremist who he allowed to spew antisemitic bile without intervening.

In the style of the American far right Cabanac often poses with guns. In a particularly disturbing instance of his affiliation with the far right in the US he has expressed his support for Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who was controversially acquitted of murder after killing three Black Lives Matter activists, terming Rittenhouse an “activist”.

In an astonishingly tone-deaf move Cabanac has now changed his bio on X to read “Baas van die plaas”. He either does not understand the pain of the history of land dispossession and exploitation of black labour on white farms and the racially charged nature of the term “baas”, or is simply contemptuous of the pain of African people.

Incredibly, the DA appears to have learnt nothing from the damaging Ronaldo Gouws fiasco and has, once again, brought a far right-wing figure with a social media following into the fold. There have long been indications that Helen Zille had been sucked down the alt right social media rabbit hole, but this is the first indication that Steenhuisen has dived in too. It is now clear that powerful figures in the party have lost touch with the reality of mainstream SA society and politics.

By defending his appointment of Cabanac in the face of spiralling outrage, including among many white people and genuine liberals, Steenhuisen has demonstrated that he has a tin ear for the sensibilities of the majority of South Africans, who are appalled by open racism. A harsher reading of the situation would be that Steenhuisen is simply contemptuous of the electorate, and the constitutional values to which he has sworn an oath of loyalty.

It has been argued recently that the GNU cannot continue to claim it is an alliance of constitutionalists while it continues to include people such as Gayton McKenzie, a xenophobic populist. It can now be argued that the same is true of Steenhuisen, who sees nothing wrong in appointing a far right-wing figure to a senior government position.

A former DA leader, one of our sharpest political thinkers, has noted that imposing a white man of Cabanac’s worldview as the leader of a team of black officials can only be a “recipe for disaster”. Steenhuisen has not only ruined his reputation and seriously damaged the standing of both his party and the GNU. He has also made it impossible for his ministry to be effective. For years many intellectuals and analysts assumed that when the collapse of the ANC came it would generate better alternatives. This was true among the left and among liberals. Many seemed to think political redemption was just a matter of waiting the ANC out. This has proven to be a naive hope.

What we are witnessing is an alarming across-the-board rise of dangerous populism. Along with the predatory nationalism of the EFF and MK, we have also seen right-wing populism fester in ActionSA and the Patriotic Alliance. Now the DA has gone down the same road. It is simply impossible for any political party that is openly complicit with racism to have any kind of future in SA.

If the DA wishes to pull back from the permanent destruction of its ability to win black votes, as well as votes from decent white people, it will need to act fast to resolve the Gouws and Cabanac fiascos, remove Steenhuisen and elect a credible leader. If the DA does not act decisively it not only faces the inevitably of its own implosion. It will also pose a serious risk to the viability of the GNU and make the EFF, and even MK, look more credible in the eyes of the electorate.

After all, Steenhuisen has acted in a way that seems to confirm the claim by the EFF and MK that the advent of GNU marks a return of the apartheid government. For many liberals the GNU seemed like an important opportunity to dial down some of the extremes of ANC incompetence and corruption and lock toxic actors out of government. In the absence of a viable left or social democratic party it seemed to many on the left that the alliance between the liberals in the ANC and the DA was the only way to hold the line against the deeply corrupt and anti-democratic forces in the EFF and MK.

Both the genuine liberals and the left are appalled by the alarmingly right-wing positions on migration, gender and traditional authority held by MK, and have found common ground in a shared sense of the urgency to defend constitutional values.

All the different forces that are committed to making the GNU work, and to defending democracy from the EFF and MK, now have a shared interest in insisting that the DA recalls Steenhuisen if it is to be a credible participant in the GNU. This includes the ANC, which will be well within its rights to make this demand of the DA. It also includes civil society, which needs to show the same firmness in dealing with Steenhuisen that it is showing with regard to impeached judge John Hlophe’s role in the Judicial Service Commission.

Business is unlikely to make public statements on this matter, but it must make it clear to the DA, even if behind the scenes, that the risk Steenhuisen now poses to the viability of the GNU is intolerable. Black-led liberal alternatives to the DA in the form of the parties led by Roger Jardine and Songezo Zibi, which were created or supported by powerful donors, did not make much headway in the recent election. But if the DA continues to wilfully destroy its credibility to the point where its viability is in question, the powerful donors that fund liberal politics will almost certainly look to invest their money in alternatives — most likely Zibi, who is a far more gifted man than Steenhuisen.

If there are any grown-ups left in the DA, now is the time for them to step forward and put an end to the party’s suicidal drift towards American-style alt right politics. There is no question that this will require the removal of Steenhuisen, a thoroughly illiberal man leading the party that claims descent from the likes of Helen Suzman and the wider liberal tradition associated with figures such as Alan Paton.

• Buccus is a political analyst.