‘Don’t single me out for the DA’s mistakes’
FORMER DA leader Mmusi Maimane, who rarely responds to criticism of how he managed the party, yesterday took issue with incumbent leader John Steenhuisen’s description of the 2019 election campaign and Maimane's leadership as “wishy-washy”.
That election saw the party experience its first general election decline in its history, and Maimane resigned soon thereafter.
Maimane was yesterday also critical of his former party's flirtation with the ANC before the 2024 elections and talk of a possible coalition should there be a split in the governing party.
In 2020, Maimane launched civic organisation, the One South Africa Movement (Osam).
Steenhuisen told the Sunday Times that the party under Maimane tried to appeal to everybody and ended up not appealing to anybody. Maimane told Independent Media that he chose to respond to Steenhuisen to challenge the inaccuracies in the interview, and to stress that it was a collective campaign and not one run by him as an individual.
“There was no major growth into new markets, and there was a retreat in terms of the base. So we lost on the swings and the roundabouts,” Steenhuisen said.
Maimane responded to this on Twitter, saying: “I usually keep quiet about the @Our_DA because I am a gentleman but I notice that @jsteenhuisen has mentioned my name in the @SundayTimesZA article and as such I am going to clarify matters. In 2019 the DA did not lose because of me, but because of John and @helenzille.” Maimane then explained what he was trying to achieve at the DA and the challenges he faced.
“To grow as a political party you must be honest with the people about the history of this country. Privilege exists. We have to diversify the benches of Parliament. We have to work on land equity and justice. We have to see people, their pain, and we can’t be colour blind.
“I wanted us to grow our voter base among the middle class and the youth. That requires speaking to them about issues that matter to them. John and Helen closed that gate. As you can see from their present messaging and tactics. As a leader I can’t go to a university student and say there is no white privilege, race is not a factor in South Africa. I would be lying to them and they would call me out on my BS. I would be naive to think that voters were not looking at how diverse the DA is in Parliament.”
“John was in the national management committee and he knows the decisions that were taken, and why. Steenhuisen and ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe did not respond to requests for comment.