In a letter to a media contact last week, parts of which I reproduce here, I said I don’t recommend people vote for the DA in May 2019’s election.
While they are not the ANC and are better in a country where mediocrity is the standard, ethically they’re little different to the ANC and with a questionable and shifting grasp of the truth. And given their record with the self-made water crisis and De Lille debacle, it’s debatable whether they will be better if they governed South Africa.
I don’t agree with the cynical “tactical” voting to keep out or reduce the number of ANC votes – that’s a mercenary contract, a marriage of convenience that’s bound to end in tears because it’s not based on one’s principles.
I’ve been proven right about the DA's ethical and governance dilemmas and corruption since 2012 (I had my doubts about Helen Zille when she was mayor of Cape Town but gave her the benefit of the doubt) when I saw the path she was taking the party on and in the process losing its liberal values. I warned Cape Town’s voters about their hubris before the 2016 local elections and it came true.
My eye-opener about Zille and DA in the Western Cape (WC) was her administration’s predator cull – regulatory capture on behalf of farmers. There’s every indication it started with her and environment MEC Anton Bredell personally after farmers invaded a public meeting she, he and I think the agriculture MEC addressed and threatened to take the law into their own hands. She and WC government caved in to this!
At the time, an acquaintance who knows the DA and WC government, told me farmers are large donors of the WC DA. The DA defends and protects them above and beyond agriculture being an important sector. He said the DA, and by extension Zille’s cabinet, were the last redoubt of racist National Party exiles.
More recently Zille’s and WC Health Department’s lies, evasion, obfuscation and violation of health laws about my late mother’s treatment and death at Groote Schuur Hospital confirm that ethically the DA are similar to the ANC they claim they’re better than. (The fight continues – see here.)
The other irritation is that DA leader Mmusi Maimane and now shadow minister of trade and industry Geordin Hill-Lewis adamantly state, without proof, the DA has created hundreds of thousands of “new” jobs in the Western Cape since 2009, and that due to them the WC has the “lowest” (sic) unemployment rate in the country (see here and here). Maimane claimed 487 000 jobs in the ten years and Hill-Lewis 640 000.
I wrote an article last year about it. Recently Maimane changed his stance, and like Hill-Lewis later did during his National Assembly speech on February 13, said the WC has the lowest (expanded) unemployment rate. Contrary to practice they didn’t explicitly say which rate – official or expanded – they’re using, which is done so as not to confuse the listener or reader. It’s a deliberate ploy to obfuscate, though. Note until Q3: 2018 Limpopo had the lowest official rate, but last year Maimane kept saying it was WC.
I wrote to Hill-Lewis and asked for credible sources for their claim. He couldn’t provide it, though, except a year-old presentation/speech Zille gave, a self-serving exercise with little to no referential value. The relevant page of the presentation about “jobs and employment” doesn’t even cite a source for her “facts”, but Hill-Lewis insists it is Stats SA.
As I told Hill-Lewis, they’re making “unverified and unverifiable claims, known as alternative facts” , and in his case, to the National Assembly. (See here and here for my exchanges with him.)
There’s no excuse – they’re making things up on the fly, are dishonest, or at best are lazy and/or don’t care to do the research or think people are stupid. But people believe still them. Their credibility is at a nadir. And it proves Gwen Ngwenya’s complaint their research capability is in a poor state.
Their supporters say "parties [DA] should be judged on its performance in government, and its potential to run the country." This view comes from a variety of people. Their argument is "The ANC is bad, and problematic as the DA is with their weak leader, confused position, in-fighting, etc, they're the best and only option available."
Ironic then that with this position they then list other small parties' problems as if the DA doesn't have ample of its own, which you're gracious to admit. In other words, their reasoning breaks down because the values a party ought – not should – to have and be judged is moot, i.e. efficient, technocratic government is the only criteria. The Chinese Communist Party today is a such a government - 'performance in government and potential to run the country', which indubitably is very good on technical grounds but their human rights record is appalling.
So no, in democracies "performance in government and potential to run the country" is not and has never been the only or most important criteria. I'm surprised those who argue this who're supposedly well-read about the DA's history hves a defective and/or naive understanding of democracy and their history. They argue "vote DA to keep out the ANC or to lower their vote numbers" are talking about expedience, or as I recently wrote above, "a mercenary contract, a marriage of convenience that's bound to end in tears". Give up one's principles for power, loot and even love, which is the strongest human emotion, and one is left with nothing, barely a conscience.
Mmusi Maimane was a poor choice as leader. Zille chose him and the party congress meekly went along with it just as the ANC did with Zuma time and again. The DA's situation is partly his fault, partly that they're trying to market a product neither their traditional supporters nor the ones they're trying to attract - poor black, the ANC's traditional base - believe in or want (like Woolworth's missteps with David Jones brand in local stores, neither fish nor fowl).
While they are not the ANC and are better in a country where mediocrity is the standard, ethically they’re little different to the ANC and with a questionable and shifting grasp of the truth. And given their record with the self-made water crisis and De Lille debacle, it’s debatable whether they will be better if they governed South Africa.
I don’t agree with the cynical “tactical” voting to keep out or reduce the number of ANC votes – that’s a mercenary contract, a marriage of convenience that’s bound to end in tears because it’s not based on one’s principles.
I’ve been proven right about the DA's ethical and governance dilemmas and corruption since 2012 (I had my doubts about Helen Zille when she was mayor of Cape Town but gave her the benefit of the doubt) when I saw the path she was taking the party on and in the process losing its liberal values. I warned Cape Town’s voters about their hubris before the 2016 local elections and it came true.
My eye-opener about Zille and DA in the Western Cape (WC) was her administration’s predator cull – regulatory capture on behalf of farmers. There’s every indication it started with her and environment MEC Anton Bredell personally after farmers invaded a public meeting she, he and I think the agriculture MEC addressed and threatened to take the law into their own hands. She and WC government caved in to this!
At the time, an acquaintance who knows the DA and WC government, told me farmers are large donors of the WC DA. The DA defends and protects them above and beyond agriculture being an important sector. He said the DA, and by extension Zille’s cabinet, were the last redoubt of racist National Party exiles.
More recently Zille’s and WC Health Department’s lies, evasion, obfuscation and violation of health laws about my late mother’s treatment and death at Groote Schuur Hospital confirm that ethically the DA are similar to the ANC they claim they’re better than. (The fight continues – see here.)
The other irritation is that DA leader Mmusi Maimane and now shadow minister of trade and industry Geordin Hill-Lewis adamantly state, without proof, the DA has created hundreds of thousands of “new” jobs in the Western Cape since 2009, and that due to them the WC has the “lowest” (sic) unemployment rate in the country (see here and here). Maimane claimed 487 000 jobs in the ten years and Hill-Lewis 640 000.
I wrote an article last year about it. Recently Maimane changed his stance, and like Hill-Lewis later did during his National Assembly speech on February 13, said the WC has the lowest (expanded) unemployment rate. Contrary to practice they didn’t explicitly say which rate – official or expanded – they’re using, which is done so as not to confuse the listener or reader. It’s a deliberate ploy to obfuscate, though. Note until Q3: 2018 Limpopo had the lowest official rate, but last year Maimane kept saying it was WC.
I wrote to Hill-Lewis and asked for credible sources for their claim. He couldn’t provide it, though, except a year-old presentation/speech Zille gave, a self-serving exercise with little to no referential value. The relevant page of the presentation about “jobs and employment” doesn’t even cite a source for her “facts”, but Hill-Lewis insists it is Stats SA.
As I told Hill-Lewis, they’re making “unverified and unverifiable claims, known as alternative facts” , and in his case, to the National Assembly. (See here and here for my exchanges with him.)
There’s no excuse – they’re making things up on the fly, are dishonest, or at best are lazy and/or don’t care to do the research or think people are stupid. But people believe still them. Their credibility is at a nadir. And it proves Gwen Ngwenya’s complaint their research capability is in a poor state.
Their supporters say "parties [DA] should be judged on its performance in government, and its potential to run the country." This view comes from a variety of people. Their argument is "The ANC is bad, and problematic as the DA is with their weak leader, confused position, in-fighting, etc, they're the best and only option available."
Ironic then that with this position they then list other small parties' problems as if the DA doesn't have ample of its own, which you're gracious to admit. In other words, their reasoning breaks down because the values a party ought – not should – to have and be judged is moot, i.e. efficient, technocratic government is the only criteria. The Chinese Communist Party today is a such a government - 'performance in government and potential to run the country', which indubitably is very good on technical grounds but their human rights record is appalling.
So no, in democracies "performance in government and potential to run the country" is not and has never been the only or most important criteria. I'm surprised those who argue this who're supposedly well-read about the DA's history hves a defective and/or naive understanding of democracy and their history. They argue "vote DA to keep out the ANC or to lower their vote numbers" are talking about expedience, or as I recently wrote above, "a mercenary contract, a marriage of convenience that's bound to end in tears". Give up one's principles for power, loot and even love, which is the strongest human emotion, and one is left with nothing, barely a conscience.
Mmusi Maimane was a poor choice as leader. Zille chose him and the party congress meekly went along with it just as the ANC did with Zuma time and again. The DA's situation is partly his fault, partly that they're trying to market a product neither their traditional supporters nor the ones they're trying to attract - poor black, the ANC's traditional base - believe in or want (like Woolworth's missteps with David Jones brand in local stores, neither fish nor fowl).
But mostly, they almost completely lost their liberal value system that was present under Leon et al. I was right about the DA before and know I'm right now about this bec insiders like ex MP Wilmot James (and others) identified similar problems a few years ago.
I'm not knocking the DA's good record where it exists but don't believe, with evidence, it's as good as they and their supporters claim. And when one examines it closely one finds it's a three-card con trick. People say I'm obsessed and vexatious about the DA but even seasoned writers and analysts are not interrogating what good governance really means, bringing it down to the lowest common denominator, and often fail to contextualise it and put the "DA vs ANC, which is worse" into silos when the principles of good governance are overarching.
I'm not knocking the DA's good record where it exists but don't believe, with evidence, it's as good as they and their supporters claim. And when one examines it closely one finds it's a three-card con trick. People say I'm obsessed and vexatious about the DA but even seasoned writers and analysts are not interrogating what good governance really means, bringing it down to the lowest common denominator, and often fail to contextualise it and put the "DA vs ANC, which is worse" into silos when the principles of good governance are overarching.
Rather than the DA or any party with pretentions of governing trying to be better than the dumbest person in the class (ANC), they should try to be the best.
The DA is not the party to lead South Africa, not now, certainly not under the present leadership and perhaps never. With the ANC on the back foot as a result of Zuma and state capture, they perhaps had one chance but ruined it. This might be the last chance for many years to come for a party that still has remnants of liberal values to be a potent contender, except the DA was on the slippery slope well before now.
The DA is not the party to lead South Africa, not now, certainly not under the present leadership and perhaps never. With the ANC on the back foot as a result of Zuma and state capture, they perhaps had one chance but ruined it. This might be the last chance for many years to come for a party that still has remnants of liberal values to be a potent contender, except the DA was on the slippery slope well before now.
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