DA inherits ANC’s factional legacy

Supporters of the Democratic Alliance (DA) attend the party’s manifesto launch, 17 February 2024, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, ahead of the upcoming general elections. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once warned: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” The governing partner of the ANC in the government of national unity (GNU), the DA should have been careful over the years that it was fighting the ANC as the official opposition that it did not become that which it feared the most about the ANC: a factional party which loses sight of its main goal of existence, becoming just a tool of the dominant faction. DA federal chair Helen Zille has been at pains trying to extricate herself from being viewed as the power behind the throne of the leader of the DA over the years.

With John Steenhuisen having announced he will not seek reelection to the position, Zille has been quoted as saying it is laughable for anyone to suggest she is behind the change. Every candidate that she has supported for the position of federal leader of the DA has ascended to the throne and when she chooses to support someone else other than the incumbent, the DA has a new leader in the party election thereafter. Deny it she will, but she is the most powerful leader in the DA.

What Zille and the DA cannot dispute, though, is that two factions have been created in the DA, one led by Zille and the other is behind Steenhuisen, the most senior DA leader in the GNU. Like normally happens in the ANC once a new president of the party is elected, but is not the president of the country, two centres of power are created. History has shown the DA’s nemesis is that the new president of the party becomes more powerful than the one leading the party in government.