3 years ago
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History provides leaders with make-or-break moments and these are reflected upon later as turning points for a country or missed opportunities.
Despite it being a municipal council, one should not underestimate how the coming days in Johannesburg will be among those moments for the DA and its leader, John Steenhuisen.
It follows the rather disappointing news over the weekend that the party will not form a coalition (with those that previously elected Mpho Phalatse as mayor), citing historical distrust of the PA. The consequence of the DA's position is the continuation of ANC/EFF governance in Johannesburg.
On one level this is bad news for residents, who face the prospect of another three years of a single-seat party, ANC/EFF compromise mayor who lacks coherent vision to address the complex problems faced by the city's residents. However, this does not constitute a historical moment for change nationally.
What defines the national significance is that Steenhuisen has announced a moonshot pact, a project to bring together all parties to provide a multiparty alternative to what his party describes as the doomsday scenario of an ANC/EFF government in 2024. Allow me to explain.
The pact was announced as a DA project, with leaders told in a speech by Steenhuisen to watch their e-mail inboxes. In attempting to appropriate the project as a DA initiative, a weight of expectation has been placed by the DA on the DA for it to succeed because of its leadership, not in spite of it. Any failure of this project to succeed that can be linked back to poor DA decision-making will be worn around the party's neck throughout the election campaign.
The other reason this moment gains greater historical gravity is because of Steenhuisen’s impressive display of magnanimity in announcing the pact, with all the right noises made about collaboration. He even implored those leaders who refused to join the discussions thereon to “unclench your fists so we can take hands and work together”.
So here we are, two weeks later, and the DA’s coalition partners are having to ask their councillors in Johannesburg to unclench their fists so they can raise them to vote out the ANC and EFF on Tuesday. This is the moment of great significance.
If the DA's hands go up to support the removal of the ANC and EFF on Tuesday, and if they proceed to work with other parties to support an alternative government, that moment of history would have been seized upon and victory will have been snatched from defeat, even if it was originally snatched from victory.
It will build confidence in the prospects of a national coalition — do not underestimate for one moment the significance of the race for Gauteng in 2024.
It will allow three years of local government stability that can start turning the corner on serious challenges and place the instability of the past 18 months in the rear-view mirror.
Success will beget success if upcoming events in Johannesburg provide momentum for national talks to begin for the moonshot pact, with parties keen to protect these hard-fought gains by making progress nationally. It will allow the baggage of local government coalitions to be left at the proverbial door for focus on providing a strong national and provincial platform of solutions that can give South Africans cause to hope against the endless grind of joblessness, crime, economic despair, load-shedding and corruption.
On the other hand, the wrong choice by the DA would be to abstain from the motion of no confidence or not support the coalition alternative that may replace it. This would see the ANC/EFF retain power in Joburg through whatever proxy one-seat party they believe they can use to front their backdoor activities.
The most severe consequence of this would shoot holes in the moonshot pact's credibility. After all, how can the call for South Africans to take this initiative seriously if moments after its announcement, the party that advanced it causes the very outcome the pact seeks to prevent — an ANC/EFF government?
Can South Africans really believe in the prospect of a moonshot pact that will achieve 51% in 2024 if the membership thereof will be a guarded and exclusive DA country club of people who have not erred in the past?
Could the DA even meet such a standard given this is the second time it is rejecting a proposal to bring the PA back into Joburg with the direct knowledge that doing so would guarantee the continuation of ANC/EFF governance?
These are all questions that float in the ether in the upcoming week.
The ANC/EFF in government, albeit through a proxy mayor, will almost certainly see Joburg as the cash cow that can be milked to fund a desperate bid to retain Gauteng in 2024. Look no further than utterances arising from the ANC’s NEC last weekend, in which concerns about ANC collusion in EFF corruption were raised.
All of this is why ActionSA has joined hands with other parties in our coalition and urged the DA to change its intended approach to imminent events. The usual vitriol and attacks have been demonstrably absent as we seek to guide the DA to appreciate the gravity of its decisions. If the bona fides of Steenhuisen and the moonshot pact are to be believed, there can be no option other than to see these events as that historical moment of origin in which the opportunity to fix our country began.
James de Villiers is ActionSA's Gauteng spokesperson
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