Herman Mashaba
Cape Town - ActionSA recently announced our Provincial Chairperson for the Western Cape, Michelle Wasserman. By any measure she is an excellent candidate with a strong track record in leadership.
In the wake of this announcement I could not help but notice various DA leaders criticising ActionSA for launching in the Western Cape. Their message was that ActionSA must not try and win DA support in the Western Cape and, rather, should stick to the other eight provinces.
I was astonished and cannot believe it necessary to even respond to this, but apparently it is.
Let’s start by clearing up one important fact. Political parties do not own the people that support them. Political parties must be kept honest by the knowledge that their voters can leave if that party does not serve their interests effectively.
The impunity that comes from a political party believing its supporters belong to them is precisely why our country is in its current position. If the ANC had believed that their support, and the associated luxuries and comforts of government, was more conditioned upon performance, I suspect South Africa would be in a better position.
The same principle must apply to the DA, because history has shown that political parties that feel they do not have to work for the support of their voters, do not work for their voters.
Perhaps the most contradictory aspect of this approach to ActionSA’s announcement is the DA’s intention to protect and safeguard a political monopoly in the Western Cape.
As an unapologetic capitalist, I believe that competition and consumer choice are vital elements to driving performance.
I had understood that the DA supported these free market principles in their policies, but perhaps much has changed since I left the party in 2019.
It is universally and objectively true that citizens that have more choices are better off than those that are stuck with fewer options because it makes all parties lift their game and improve their service to those they are meant to serve.
Much of this stems from what can only be understood as DA insecurities and to understand this some context is required.
ActionSA contested only 6 municipalities out of 278 in the 2021 local government elections. Despite this, ActionSA came 6th nationally and won voting districts in townships, informal settlements, CBDs and suburbs.
This was possible because ActionSA is the only party in South Africa that has broad appeal across all communities in South Africa. This threatens established political parties.
The DA is a party in decline across the country and they are desperate to arrest that decline. Nowhere is that truer than in the Western Cape.
ActionSA won significant support from both the ANC and the DA in the 2021 local government elections. In Johannesburg the DA fell from 104 councillors to 71, and they fear this being replicated elsewhere.
For the purpose of this article, this is why the DA fears a strong Western Cape structure of ActionSA.
Those former DA supporters who voted for ActionSA in 2021 did so of their own choosing and were not taken to the ballot box at gunpoint.
They made a choice based on an assessment of the DA’s changes over the past few years and ActionSA becoming the most diverse party in South Africa that is occupying the rational middle ground of our politics.
A more mature approach would be for the DA to introspect on why people who have voted for them for decades are seeking an alternative and adjusting their approach. This is how businesses operate in dynamic environments and political parties are no different. It is politically immature of the DA to blame ActionSA and those who voted for us for their own shortcomings.
The more important point about ActionSA’s broad appeal is that we remain the only party to be represented across all nine provinces that wins support away from the ANC.
This means that in 2024 ActionSA will win support from the ANC across the province.
Given that ActionSA is in coalition with the DA in a number of municipalities already, this would provide for a composition of the provincial legislature that is more aligned to the work of delivering services, growing the economy and creating jobs.
It will also ensure that there is a strong enough party to hold the DA to account, because wrongdoing is wrong irrespective of which party is perpetrating it.
It is necessary for ActionSA to become a political party that brings a pro-poor service delivery agenda to the Western Cape. The notion that ‘the DA gets things done’ is a flawed notion for two reasons.
Firstly, it is said relative to the ridiculously low bar of ANC governance which is tantamount to measuring your performance against the worst industry standard. The DA has never had real competition for good governance and this is why ActionSA is not well received given the credible track record of many of our leaders in government.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the notion of DA governance being better is not true for residents of the Western Cape living in poor communities.
I used to visit many of these communities in the tumultuous period of the 1980’s and I have been the Mayor of Johannesburg.
I can tell you, without equivocation, that life in Khayelitsha, Langa, Gugulethu, the Cape Flats and rural areas of the Western Cape has actually gone backwards.
My visits to these communities revealed how these residents are no better off than those who live in terrible conditions under ANC governments.
Let me be clear, all South Africans have a responsibility to address the rising inequality in our country. Our present and declining circumstances are not sustainable and can only result in unrest and instability in our country.
The fact that the DA in the Western Cape has not translated its time in office into meaningful improvements in these communities, is something which should concern all residents of the Western Cape and not just those who are told that their poverty is somehow better than that of a person suffering under failed ANC governance.
Interestingly, on my tour through the Western Cape, I was engaged by many people who are keen to vote for ActionSA. What interested me greatly were the number of DA supporters who indicated their interest in voting for the DA on the provincial ballot because of a degree of satisfaction with matters, but expressed their enthusiasm to vote ActionSA on the national ballot because of their discontent with the direction of the DA.
These votes, added to the rapid growth of ActionSA in the other eight provinces, will ensure ActionSA emerges as a credible alternative nationally to the ANC.
ActionSA is established in the Western Cape and is unapologetic about this fact.
We are here to provide options to many residents of the Western Cape who could find in ActionSA a political home that represents all South Africans, that drives a pro-poor agenda and that has the prospect of being an alternative to the ANC.
That this makes leaders in the DA uncomfortable is not our aim, but nor is it our problem. The project is about serving the residents of the Western Cape and, if they are doing that so well, they should be less concerned.
Mashaba is ActionSA’s president.
Cape Times