The DA’s failure to see past race will be the ANC's saving grace, Build One SA leader Mmusi Maimane said.
Maimane, a former leader of the DA, hit out at the official opposition party on Monday for using identity politics — in particular race — instead of providing a vision based on the shared interests of the country.
Numerous polls including one by the ANC itself show that the governing party will struggle to attain the 50% plus one it requires to govern. But the party has gone all out, enlisting the services of its former leaders such as Thabo Mbeki, David Mabuza, Kgalema Motlanthe and Baleka Mbete, among others.
The DA, together with new political parties like Good and the Patriotic Alliance, are in a serious competition for the coloured vote in the Western Cape ahead of the national and provincial elections on May 29.
“Parties are interested in consolidating constituencies on biological issues. Identity politics is not ideal. It is in the interest of SA that there be shared interests,” Maimane said in an interview with Business Day.
The DA is campaigning on a “rescue SA platform’ in a bid to get the party’s traditional white voters out on election day. It recently published a controversial election advertisement on national television of a burning SA flag, a move widely castigated by other political parties and analysts. President Cyril Ramaphosa referred to the advert as treasonous.
“While some are burning flags in their adverts and others are telling falsehoods about their 30-year tenure in government. It is more of the same predictable behaviour from the old parties, without a single new idea or credible vision for SA,” Maimane said.
“This is further evidenced by the fact that ethno-nationalist parties are all on the rise.”
Maimane, who unseated the ANC in the Joburg and Tshwane through DA-led opposition party coalitions after the 2016 local government elections, was shown the door by SA’s official opposition in 2021 after the party lost some of its traditional support to smaller opposition parties.
He is now contesting the May 29 general election as leader of Build One SA.
While critical of opposition political parties for not providing an alternative vision for SA, Maimane acknowledged that should the ANC fail to win a majority in the national and provincial polls, his party would lend it support to a DA-led coalition.
“2024 is not 1994. It could be a second transition. We cannot coalesce on corruption or colour. We need a grand coalition of the opposition,” he said.
“What I want to see from all parties is a vision and plan on energy, Transnet, infrastructure build, around broad band. If we are, in fact, going to create jobs in townships, we need digital infrastructure, kids staying in school through a voucher system and delivering communities that are safe,” Maimane said.
He said that if voters did not lend support to new political parties in these elections, SA would face five more years of social and economic decline.
On possible coalition talks post elections, he said political parties are going to try to win “in the boardroom” what they have not won on the streets.
“How will they go into coalition talks with a vision and a plan? We need leadership in the boardroom and the stoop. You cannot walk into coalition talks without acknowledging people you disagree with as a starting point,” he said, adding that that was how he succeeded in 2016 to create the coalitions in Tshwane and Johannesburg.
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