Why I won't vote for the DA

 Political analysts know politics but they're no better than you or I telling which way an election will go. By applying what we all could see, I predicted the DA's and ANC's result within one percentage point at 2019's election. 

2010 was the last time I voted DA in any election. I saw how, under Helen Zille, it became unmoored from its liberal principles. She was, and is, a key figure in its failure to keep voters and the disillusionment of former non-white supporters. 

Under her the DA, always a bit shouty, became even more strident. One expects politicians to be proud and never admit they're wrong, but the DA's hubris became unpleasant to bear. They took example from Zille herself including their approach to the various scandals and problems she personally and DA experienced since. 

The DA has shifted to centre-right, similar now to FF+ but without the latter's integrity about what it stands for. Wilmot James, when he was DA MP, expressed concern about the decline of true liberalism in the party. Around then Tony Leon reportedly said no liberals still existed in the DA. 

After 2019's election, Zille and DA were more concerned about losing white, Afrikaner votes than non-white. De Lille and her followers said as much when they left the DA: the DA's white leadership is only concerned with black and brown voters around election time. The DA brags it's the most racially represented party, ie by demographics, but it's leadership nationally and WC is mostly white. Alan Winde is not the most qualified to be premier, but still no brown premier in a largely brown province. And another white mayor, parachuted in from outside council. 

Nationally John Steenhuisen is inappropriate to lead the DA, another wrong Zille appointee - she just doesn't get it right but her devoted (ie white) supporters won't hold her to account. He's as charmless as Fikile Mbalula but without the designer gear. Always angry, always berating. Clueless like the party he leads. 

The DA hit rock bottom ethically with the hatchet job on Patricia de Lille - the made-up charges and ludicrous Steenhuisen report. Administratively, the water crisis of 2017 showed their limitations. They've done relatively well in WC and Cape Town only compared to SA's mediocre standards which South Africans and DA supporters mistake for excellence. 

The DA and ANC have essentially the same problem: shopworn and, for ANC, redundant ideas in a marketplace overflowing with new entrants and where customers are desperate for innovation. But both parties have run out of ideas, or fail to reinvent old ones, with incompetent managers in charge, and with ANC, stealing from the till. 

2024, nationally DA won't beat its 2019 result; ANC 51% give or take. I admit, though, I can't figure MK's role in ANC dropping below 50%, but if so, not by much and not 40% as polls predicted. In WC, DA will be pressed to keep its majority. But I've long said perhaps a coalition of stable parties - excluding ANC and these new populist parties - might be better for the province and avoid the pitfalls of long, single-party rule like the ANC.