Newly re-elected DA leader John Steenhuisen believes in transformation in SA but says this should be achieved through empowerment and redress rather than affirmative action, which he opposes.
“We have a huge legacy issue to address in SA in terms of race and gender. The question I have had to think about carefully is what suits SA, and in my heart I know transformation does. It makes sense too within the DA’s policy of an open, equal-opportunity society to fix SA’s education system to give every South African equitable access as well as equitable access to jobs,” Steenhuisen said in an exclusive interview with Business Day.
South Africans also needed equal access to quality healthcare and safe environments in municipalities that deliver.
Transformation, he stressed, should not be through affirmative action, which he has never supported.
Steenhuisen reiterated the DA’s stand against BEE as it gives a few advantages at the expense of corporate good practice by established companies that create jobs in SA, and stifles growth and investment.
“Who does it benefit? Retired ANC politicians, No, no, no,” he said.
Empowerment should be far more broad-based using poverty as a measure, which would automatically exclude those who have already been empowered.
“The question with race is how far do you go. My wife grew up in orphanages and foster homes and when people see her they only see race, privilege. People are not envoys of race but individuals,” Steenhuisen said.
With more than 80% support compared to his nearest competitor at the DA’s national conference, Steenhuisen recorded a more decisive victory than former leaders of SA’s official opposition, Helen Zille and Tony Leon.
His economic vision is expected to not only lead the election campaign ahead of the 2024 general elections for the DA, but also shape the party’s economic offering as any losses of electoral support will see him face the possibility of having to fall on his sword, such as the party’s first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, who was shown the door in 2019 after the party’s traditional white support stayed away after the DA’s attempt to be an alternative to the ANC.
If Steenhuisen is successful in convincing voters that the DA will not back track on his economic vision, the party has the potential to grow in the provincial and national ballot in the vote next year, drawing support of black, white, Indian and coloured professionals frustrated by the status quo in the workplace across the racial divide.
The DA has suffered electoral losses in successive elections in recent years do to overreaching itself to woo black voters, at the expense of its traditional white supporters.
As to what a DA government will mean for ministers, Steenhuisen says there is a “cabinet world” in which the executive is “so far removed from reality” that they are not affected by the high cost of living, the price of petrol and crime.
Ministers have the option of being housed, driven around in state vehicles and have 24 hour police protection and up to two generators at their homes to shield them from load-shedding.
“All that goes away under a DA government. It you look all over the world, presidents and ministers ride the tube, use public transport. Why is it different here in SA? There are two worlds, a cabinet world and a world the rest of the country live in. We need to be closer to the people. Cut the social distance,” Steenhuisen said.
Cutting blue lights in the City of Cape Town is something the DA government has successfully implemented.
Steenhuisen added that the DA’s experience in governing Cape Town and the Western Cape is that “servant leadership” and no blue lights allow for a better economy and willingness to tackle social ills. “The DA is the only party fighting for the things that matter,” he said.
Several independent polls, including by the ANC itself, suggest the governing party’s electoral support could fall below the 50% mark during the provincial and national elections in 2024.
The DA’s presiding officer, Greg Krumbock, has said internal and external polls predicted there would be only an 11% difference between the ANC and the DA in the 2024 elections, stressing the party congress was crucial as “we could very well be electing the president of the country at this congress”, which was attended by about 2,000 delegates.
Steenhuisen characterised the EFF, SA’s third-largest political party, as having “empty rage” in its support of the patronage networks in the ANC, which the DA claims are protected by “rock star ministers”.
“That is precisely why the blossoming alliance between the EFF, ANC and its proxies managed to connive their way back into power in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, while the DA’s Cilliers Brink is today the mayor of Tshwane. The lessons we’ve learnt on coalitions are also why our chief whip in the National Assembly, Siviwe Gwarube, is working hard on a number of bills aimed at solving these issues around too many small parties disrupting a coalition government,” Steenhuisen said.
The DA’s economic vision includes scrapping the government’s two-decade-old temporary jobs scheme as well as stabilising the public debt-to-GDP ratio through higher rates of economic growth and safeguarding the independence of the Reserve Bank.
It presents its vision as an alternative to the ANC, after the governing party’s failure to arrest runaway joblessness, poverty, inequality and corruption.
The opposition party’s blueprint comes in a year in which the IMF expects economic growth of just 0.2%, rising to about 1.5% over the medium term, amid a deepening power crisis and transport and logistics constraints, which are strangling economic activity.
The DA’s economic policy resolutions were adopted by the highest decision-making body, the federal council, in 2022 and affirmed by the majority of the 2,000 delegates at its internal leadership conference at the weekend.
“The DA places the blame for poor economic growth and joblessness squarely on the ANC’s policies, as well as ANC actions such as corruption and state capture,” Steenhuisen said.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.