DA ‘rent a black’ strategy blamed
The strategy of “rent a darkie” is exploding in the face of the DA – that is why you find councillors in Nelson Mandela Bay rebelling against their party, some analysts argue.
Political analyst Mcebisi Ndletyana said black councillors revolting against the DA was a reflection of the “inadequate” way the party had gone about recruiting leaders.
“Initially they were quite desperate to get any black person,” he said.
“It was a ‘rent a darkie’ kind of strategy, any black person, without looking at the credibility of that person.
“There were unscrupulous politicians who were always looking for a new political home as long as they could get a job. These are entrepreneurs, not politicians of principle.”
On Friday, two DA ward councillors – Trevor Louw and Neville Higgins – sided with the DA’s opponents, the UDM, ANC, AIC, United Front and EFF, to hold a council meeting that saw a motion passed to have the speaker investigate Athol Trollip for leaking municipal documents to DA leader Mmusi Maimane.
On August 27, DA councillor Mbulelo Manyati sided with the opposition to have former council speaker Jonathan Lawack removed, which also later resulted in Trollip being ousted as mayor.
Higgins accused the party of double standards and said prior to being a ward councillor he had to resign from his job, while Louw did not explain why he turned on his party.
Political analyst and NMU lecturer Ongama Mtimka said whatever went wrong between the party and the councillors must have been irreconcilable for the councillors to hand over “an overwhelming DA majority to the new coalition government”.
Mtimka said the change of power in the metro was in all likelihood because the councillors felt they could take action and punish their own party.
“Whatever failure from the DA in managing the relationship with its councillors was huge, because now they’ve lost two seats which will be difficult to replace, because you cannot just replace a ward councillor; there has to be a byelection and it’s going to set the DA back at least three months,” he said.
Researcher and analyst Joleen Steyn-Kotze said one should not be surprised by what was going on within the DA due to the party’s growth.
“As a party grows you see the emergence of different factions within the party that may have their own ideological priorities,” she said,
“They feel important and one way to exert this might be to vote against party lines.”
She said one of the key priorities for DA Eastern Cape leader Nqaba Bhanga to tackle was to set a political agenda to bring different factions of the DA together.
“More importantly, he will need to work towards getting away from the idea of the black caucus within the DA because it would undermine the DA’s ability to attract more votes for the 2019 elections,” SteynKotze said.
Bhanga said the matter of the three councillors turning their backs on the DA was simple – there was a lot of money flying around in the metro.
“They [opposition] have identified which councillors have challenges and are using money to sway them,” he said.
“You have people with criminal charges who are vulnerable when someone says ‘we’ll put up the money for your legal representation’.
“You have people who might have been suspended for non-performance.
“The black people who are in the DA are genuine. There is no ‘rent a darkie’ situation.”
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