John Steenhuisen — forever Number Two

Immaculately dressed, velvetvoiced and full of sensible business strategies, Number Two deserved better than to be remembered as scatological innuendo.

Then again, when you ’ re a character in the Austin Powers films, you know what you’re in for. As Doctor Evil’s second-incommand and de facto CEO of their evil empire, Number Two is firmly trapped between a rock and a trapdoor leading to an underfloor incinerator.

Inevitably, there are frustrations and resentments. Having to explain to his boss that sharks are protected and that the murder pool will instead have to be stocked with illtempered sea bass would test any relationship.

Which is why when Austin Powers finds himself battling an assassin in a toilet cubicle and infamously grunts, “Who ... does ... Number ... Two ... work ... for?” it’s a slightly more intelligent question than you might assume. I mean, as toilet jokes go.

Indeed, it’s a question I find myself asking as I watch John Steenhuisen, the interim leader of the DA, descend the steel staircase of the party’s secret volcano lair. It might seem like an odd connection to make, but Number Two and Steenhuisen do have a couple of things in common. Both, for example, come across as pragmatic, eloquent and polite.

Both claim to be trying to drag an organisation away from scandal towards popularity and transparency. Both have to mediate, and often suppress, the wild ejaculations of the kingpin at the end of the boardroom table, who spends his (or her) time making and then rejecting clones of themselves.

Number Two wears an eye patch, despite having two perfectly good eyes. As leader of the DA, Steenhuisen probably can see race, but doesn’t, except when he does, except when it’s not important, other than, obviously, when it is. Most importantly, however, both are Number Two, with no prospect whatsoever of becoming Number One.

The DA will clearly go on contesting power in the provinces and doing its job as official opposition, but its dream of national leadership must surely be over now. If SA’s economy improves slightly and our national gloom lifts, Cyril Ramaphosa will get the credit. After that, any future economic gains will translate directly into electoral ones for the ANC.

If, on the other hand, we drift deeper into the quagmire of debt and untouchable stateowned enterprises, and the economy shrinks even more, the drift of voters towards the populists and extremists on the fringes will accelerate. The worse things get, the less likely voters will be to gravitate towards a moderate party struggling to decide which bit of the centre and centre-right it occupies. In short, it is possible that the next 10 or even 20 years will involve a popular ANC government, an unpopular ANC government, or no government at all.

Indeed, for a government almost paralysed by embedded predatory networks, trying to stir an economy from its malaise without sending it into a fatal decline, Ramaphosa ’ s administration has been extremely skilful at stepping back and allowing the spotlight to blaze on opposition fiascos. When talk turns to SA’s most recent multibillion-rand heist, it is the EFF that is named, not the ANC. When headlines report a recent slew of by-election disasters and a party suffering a public crisis, it is the DA in those news reports, not the ANC.

Even when the governing party finds itself named in some fresh grotesquery, the brilliantly effective “two ANCs” narrative makes it go away. Say what? There are 27,000 taxpayer-funded millionaires in the public service? Well, there’s that bloated Zupta patronage machine for you.

Lindiwe Sisulu has appointed Bathabile Dlamini to a highprofile position? Well, the pundits did warn us that smallanyana skeletons would be legal tender for years after Zuma was gone. And did you read this stuff about Sisulu possibly facing investigation over using R14m of taxpayers’ money to run a personal political campaign? Maybe she’s not a Ramaphosist after all.

Yes, perception is powerful, and every week Ramaphosa doesn’t appear in a headline the perception is strengthened that the Good ANC is slowly putting daylight between itself and the swamp. And every week that happens, Steenhuisen and the DA are more deeply entrenched as Number Two.

Which brings me back to Austin Powers’s seminal, slapstick question: who does Number Two work for? Can the DA under Steenhuisen make peace with becoming a priest of the temple, living modestly and dying quietly in the service of bureaucratic process? Can it serve SA with no hope of serving itself? Can ambitious people put principle and process above self-interest and the gleam of that ultimate brass ring?

Or does Number Two still dream of having his own pool full of ill-tempered sea bass?

Number Two wears an eye patch, despite having two perfectly good eyes