DA pulls out all the stops in Gauteng

• Leader moves to battleground province • Insiders fear it may do badly in Joburg, Tshwane

So worried is he about the DA haemorrhaging support in the local government elections that party leader John Steenhuisen has moved to Gauteng.

Party insiders tell Business Day that internal polling suggests the DA, which won big in the previous local government elections in the province and once had ambitions to secure majority votes, may fare badly in Joburg and Tshwane.

While Steenhuisen would not confirm or deny this, he does concede Joburg and Tshwane are battlegrounds for the party.

“A split opposition would allow the ANC in through the back door,” Steenhuisen said in an interview.

“I have come here to say, ‘don’t play with fire’. It will only consolidate the ANC’s power.”

The ANC lost Joburg and Tshwane back in 2016, after registering a decline of about 10% in both metros as many ANC voters stayed away. The DA won 38% in Joburg and 43% in Tshwane and it moved quickly to unite the opposition, which included the EFF.

This resulted in some of the DA’s traditional supporters shifting alliances to parties like the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) in the 2019 general election.

Steenhuisen hopes former DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s exit will have inspired confidence in the DA.

“We are hoping to win back support we had before the 2019 election,” Steenhuisen said.

PHOENIX POSTERS

Steenhuisen said achieving 2016’s level of support may be too ambitious because it was a “unique election” with sentiment against former president Jacob Zuma, prompting ANC voters to stay at home.

The DA’s flip-flop on its posters in Phoenix in Durban, where there was a sharp increase in tension between black and Indian residents during the July violence amid scores of deaths there, has caused consternation among party leaders who spoke to Business Day. And the move has resulted in one of its campaign managers, Mike Waters, resigning.

DA posters placed next to

each other read: “The ANC called you racists” and “The DA calls you heroes.”

Waters, in a resignation letter on Monday — which he confirmed he penned — said he could no longer promote the DA after the weakness it displayed over the controversial posters.

Steenhuisen said the party would rather remain in opposition than go into coalition with the EFF, but he has not ruled it out entirely.

“We have been very clear on who we will be in coalition with. Those parties would have to align with our principles.

“It would be difficult; I would want to avoid that,” he said.

Steenhuisen is most nervous about not winning back support the party lost under Maimane. The DA showed Maimane the door after its share of the vote dropped to 20% in the 2019 general elections, from 22% in 2014.

He said a vote for the FF+ or ActionSA would split the opposition and allow the ANC to govern again, and he urged voters to choose the “party that stands the best chance”.

He added that Herman Mashaba, who rose to become Joburg mayor on a DA ticket and is now president of ActionSA, “did not have a path to victory”.

Steenhuisen said not only had ActionSA had issues with submitting lists on time to the Electoral Commission of SA, but a lot of its ward councillors do not appear on its proportional representation list.