Steenhuisen under pressure as DA gets buyer’s remorse

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The sharks are circling around Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen with both detractors and supporters doubting his ability to lead the party after Monday’s local government elections. 

The Mail & Guardian spoke to four DA federal executive council leaders who say that Steenhuisen may be on his way out. This comes as internal party leaders have suggested that it’s unlikely the party will win any major victories in these elections. 

The DA is said to be pessimistic about its chances of regaining the metropolitan municipalities of Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Johannesburg. In Cape Town, where the party still wields considerable power, smaller parties such as Patricia de Lille’s Good are expected to take a few of its coloured votes. 

The four party insiders — three of them in Steenhuisen’s dominant faction, also referred to as the classical liberal bloc — say they are increasingly concerned that he is “not the right person for the job”. 

Steenhuisen, who rose up the ranks when One South Africa’s Mmusi Maimane left the DA shortly after a loss in the 2019 general elections, is losing popularity even in the parliamentary caucus, one party leader said. 

The parliamentary caucus member said Steenhuisen, together with his allies, is alienating some members.

The party leaders say Steenhuisen has surrounded himself with “like-minded people who do not advise him well or challenge his authority”. 

“When we voted for him, we were at a point where we were gradually losing our traditional base, our support in the black communities was waning and the coloured community was also beginning to doubt us. He was the only option we had to appease our donors and he was popular among our constituency because of the great work he has done in parliament,” one DA federal executive member said, adding that this has all changed. 

Steenhuisen and his close allies, including parliamentary chief whip Natasha Mazzone and Dean Macpherson, are now considered a liability, another party leader said, adding that the DA’s performance in the elections will determine how the party deals with him.

Steenhuisen has also fallen short in terms of bringing back traditional white voters, which the dominant faction had believed him capable of doing.

“What we have done is to alienate one voting group to appease the other and that has not worked. The project in Stellenbosch University has been a flop,” one party leader said.

In 2019, a panel review report on the party’s general elections performance — by former leaders Tony Leon and Ryan Coetzee, together with Capitec founder Michiel le Roux — tabled before the DA’s federal council, found that the party’s relentless focus of winning over black supporters was understandable, but that taking existing voters for granted was always a mistake.

“It is striking that, over a period of many years, the DA failed to heed a number of warnings that it was alienating sections of the white Afrikaans electorate,” the panel said. 

The party leader said the resignation of prominent former DA MP Phumzile van Damme had also hurt the party’s image.

Another DA leader added that Steenhuisen had not kept his promise to move away from what many called Maimane’s “ANC-lite” position. 

In an interview with News24 in 2019, Steenhuisen said he would not be caught up in merely critiquing the government party’s policies all the time, but would come up with the DA’s own new, exciting, bold ideas.

“If you go through his speech at our final rally, he mentioned the ANC 32 times. This is in contrast with what he promised when he wanted to be leader. We are still focused on the ANC and it’s not gaining any traction, black or white,” the party leader said. 

The fourth federal executive member, and Steenhuisen ally, said the elections could threaten his  authority in the party, but added that it would not be fair to blame a loss on one individual. 

“If we can’t even get back our traditional voters from the Freedom Front Plus, then he is in trouble. These elections are a barometer of what we have lost and what we could gain back — and also what we do in future. If we lose metros and we come out weakened in Cape Town, we are all to blame, not just Steenhuisen. What I can say is that he has not helped the situation,” the party leader said. 

A senior DA source in KwaZulu-Natal said there were “very real” concerns about Steenhuisen’s future, which had escalated, because of his handling of the Phoenix poster debacle and its effect on party activists working in areas with a black majority.

The posters, proclaiming “The ANC called you racists”’ and “The DA calls you heroes”, were commissioned by Macpherson and sparked a backlash against the party.

They were taken down, but not before both Macpherson — who later apologised — and Steenhuisen defended their content and the message they conveyed.

“There are very real concerns about how the party is being led. There was no direction in dealing with issues like Phoenix. It was embarrassing. It diverted from the actual work. The party came out of it with a damaged image,’’ the DA member said.

Steenhuisen declined to comment.