The Party in Opposition

For years the Democratic Alliance has been the official opposition. With impressive showings in the 2004 and 2009 elections the party has made numerous strides in the South African political sphere. Helen Zille has managed to appeal to a base of voters who were uninterested under Tony Leon’s leadership, most poignantly illustrated by the party’s victory in the Western Cape. There is a lot to be proud of for DA followers and party members but there are many issues which still need to be addressed.

I have never liked the DA and there are several reasons for this beyond the tag of being a party that represents white interests. DA election manifestos and mottos of past years are comparable to those of political parties in Europe. The DA has a complex which prevents it from appealing to the people most numerous in the electorate: black voters. The party is often slated as promoting white interests because there seem to be no areas where tangible policy promises aimed at black people exist.

This is not to say that the sole responsibility of a political party in South Africa is to cater to the concerns of the black majority alone. It just seems surprising that the main opposition party in a country with such alarming socio-economic disparities and an overwhelming black majority does not see it fit to come up with policies specifically addressing the problems created by a racially divisive past.

The center-right ideology of the DA only serves to alienate it from black voters and has proven to be unpopular outside of the Western Cape. They speak of open opportunities for all and cutting business tax and bringing more investment to the country, but nowhere in that discourse is a promise to assist those who cannot assist themselves due to the heritage of the apartheid system.

The party and its leader are especially obsessed with ANC bashing, and simply opposing for the sake of opposing. This comes off publicly at times as being unnecessary and overly bellicose especially from a party that preaches fairness and equality at every turn. The party of “open opportunities” has a love of using “cronyism” and “cadre-deployment” at every chance they get when talking about the ANC. Last year Hellen Zille addressed a UCT crowd and said that she couldn’t work out why people still voted for the ANC. All I could think was what is the alternative – a party that seems to be more for white and coloured people than black people; a party that has policies which are comparable to those of a conservative European party; a party that has a leadership that is predominantly white and a party that doesn’t seem to take unions or workers seriously?

Such a party deserves little if any support from the millions of people who have more serious concerns than mimicking fancy party slogans and symbols. Perhaps if the DA concerned itself with everyday workers and unions and stopped pandering to the media and trying to be right on every issue it would attract more black voters. If they do not reform they will continue to be nothing more than a party in opposition, merely opposing for no reason other than to oppose.

Written by Tatenda Goredema, the Deputy Editor of Varsity Newspaper