Politics.za

Joe Seremane has announced his candidacy for leadership of the DA. Now it’s pretty clear that the DA needs black leadership and I have no doubt that Joe Seremane would be a capable leader but he is by no means the solution to their leadership problem in fact I would say that the DA will be in no better or worse shape if Seremane or Athol Trollip are elected. If Seremance is elected leader of the DA they will still have a a significant dearth of black leadership and it is going to take a lot of work, and a lot of time, to recruit and nurture the leadership they need.

That’s not a joke headline, Thabo Mbeki actually praised Tony Leon’s opposition leadership in Parliament. It’s not the first time he’s done so.

From where I sit, I would never have the courage to argue that he served merely as a Chihuahua, because, indeed, he has the bark of a bull terrier.

Granted this is because Leon is retiring so it’s all backslapping and handshakes all round.

Update: Here’s a quote from Thabo Mbeki directed at Leon to illustrate the usual discourse between them.

I was indeed pleased to note the fact that Honourable Members truly respected his (Leon’s) right to state his views by containing their heckling, making it possible for all of us to hear what he had to say, regardless of its merits.

I initially thought the AMP’s dalliance (and subsequent booting out of the DA coalition) was confined strictly to the local level with perhaps a few provincial leaders from both sides involved. However it has been revealed by AMP Chairman Gulam Sabdia that ANC Chairman (and Minister of Defence) Masiuoa Lekota was heavily involved in negotiations.

I guess the fact that the DA controls Cape Town is still a bit of an irritating itch for the ANC. The obsessiveness the ANC is showing here in trying to get the DA out of power is also a bit concerning especially considering the ‘truce’ of sorts that followed the last attempt where Provincial MEC for Local Government Richard Diyanti was going to use his legislative power to remove the executive committee system used in Cape Town. In return for calling that off the ANC were granted 5 more local sub-councils. I wonder if the gloves will come off further.

Mayor Helen Zille has ejected the AMP from the DA led coalition in the Cape Town city council for what she calls ‘blackmail’ after the AMP demanded that their councillor Badih Chaaban be made deputy mayor. When Zille refused the AMP began talks with the ANC which then prompted Zille to give them the boot. If the AMP do now join with the ANC it will reduce the DA coalition majority to one vote. With a by election in Hout Bay next month the ANC could draw level if they win that.

Correction: The DA coalition is already in minority, 103 votes against a potential 106.

Update: ID: DA approached us

Update: DA Mal weighs in.

Update: ID joins Zille camp

DA Eastern Cape Provincial Leader Athol Trollip has announced (via email so no links as of yet) that he is running for DA National Leader once Tony Leon retires in May. From his announcement it seems he plans to aggressively target disillusioned ANC voters

I plan to lead an offensive into this constituency that will accelerate the growth of our party and directly threaten the ANC hegemony over government outside of the Western Cape. There is a growing movement of disillusioned former ANC voters who feel that they have been duped and let down by the current government. I will take the DA’s message of freedom and opportunity directly to these South Africans with a passion and determination that has never before been seen in the DA.

Besides Joe Seremane, Trollip would be my choice for leader of the DA. According to what I’ve read he is fluent in isiXhosa and the lack of DA leadership who speak isiXhoza, isiZulu or Sesotho is something that I’v harped on about in the past. He is also leader in the Eastern Cape and so has lots of experience in an ANC dominated government and it’s workings (or in the case of the Eastern Cape, it’s non-workings).

I expect we might see a few more announcements by DA leadership candidates in the coming weeks. I expect at least Joe Seremane and Theuns Botha to run as well.

This is quite a change after trying to divine the intentions of the candidates for the ANC leadership for the past few months.

The DA must be absolutely insane if they think that replacing soon to be outgoing leader Tony Leon with Mayor Helen Zille will be anything short of a political disaster. Why on earth would she go from a position where she actually has some political power to one where she has none?

For her to abandon the post so soon after the bitter fight for mayor will be comparable to Rudy Giulani leaving his post as mayor of New York right after the 9/11 attacks. Cape Town DA voters would not be happy.

This also highlights the fact that the DA has no one at the top (who is not a middle aged white male) who can take over. DA Western Cape leader Theuns Botha can prattle on about how it won’t be hard to replace Zille as mayor, it will just be a lot harder to clean up the ensuiung PR fallout.

Tony Leon will be vacting his leadership of the DA in May 2007. As Someamoungus noted the future leadership still has a few problems.

Back in 1999 national elections the DA ran on a platform that included a basic income grant (BIG). At the time the ANC pooh-poohed the idea as being unworkable and impractical. But in a turnaround Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya has now come out in favour of the BIG. Of course he’s careful to stress that this is just his personal opinion and not that of the ANC.

A deal has been reached between Mayor Zille and MEC for Local Government Richard Diyanti that will see the DA coalition retain control of the executive mayoral committee. In return two new subcouncils are to be created with extra ward committees. I assume those new subcouncils will be ANC controlled.

This seems to be quite a PR victory for the DA who managed to successfully go toe to toe with the ANC.

The biggest losers though are the ID. If the DA and ANC start working more closely together they will be completely left out in the cold. When (if?) the floor crossing period opens again I expect them to take a serious hit. Which is why they’re trying to take credit for the ANC backing down, as can be seen in this quote from ID caucus leader Simon Grindrod:

“We are glad that the ANC heeded our call to ‘immediately halt this power grab’,” says Grindrod.

It looks like Richard Diyanti’s move to grab the Cape Town council from the DA might be hitting a few snags. Firstly it seems that there are some in the ANC who are suffering from a bit of ‘democratic remorse’ and are thinking maybe you know they should just respect the outcome of the municipal election.

The second reason why it might hit a snag is oh so ironic. Back in 2002 when the ANC took control of the Cape Town municipality via floor crossing the DA took the ANC to court to try and get seats on the new created executive mayoral committee. If seats were to be given out according to proportion of votes received the DA would have received 4 of the 10 mayoral council seats. Except that the ANC successfully argues that the DA only had to be ‘broadly represented’ and not ‘directly represented’ and they were only given two seats on council and denied any portfolio positions.

And now this same ruling could come back and bite the ANC. According to this ruling the ANC may only be entitled to one or two seats with the ID also receiving a single seat and the DA the rest.