John Steenhuisen has torched his exit from the DA with a scorched-earth interview, accusing new leader Geordin Hill-Lewis of breaking a personal commitment to keep him as Agriculture Minister and fingering Tony Leon’s firm Resolve Communications as complicit in his removal. Writing for BizNews, veteran political analyst John Matisonn unpacks the more serious damage: a party that markets itself as SA’s competent, scandal-free alternative to the ANC being portrayed by its former leader as fractured, unprepared for national government, and strategically paralysed on the central question of black voter outreach. Steenhuisen’s “AfriMAGA” warning — directed at Trump-sympathetic elements within the DA’s base — may prove the most consequential political shot of the post-election GNU era.
By John Matisonn
Former DA leader John Steenhuisen has pulled the Band-Aid off the DA to show the bad blood inside the DA leadership, fingering both the new leader Geordin Hill-Lewis and former leader Tony Leon.
In an interview with news24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson, Steenhuisen said Hill-Lewis had broken his word given when Steenhuisen stepped down as DA leader to make way for Hill-Lewis, that he would stay on as Agriculture Minister.
And he said he was shocked to discover that Resolve Communicaitons, the communications company headed by former DA leader Tony Leon, a close family friend of Steenhuisen, was involved in the campaign against him.
Steenhuisen said he believed the plan to oust him as Agriculture Minister was being hatched for some time, suggesting this was while he was being promised he could keep the job at least until his department had vaccinated 80% of South Africa’s cattle herd.
Coming seven months after the DA leadership was rocked by a schism when Steenhuisen, as DA leader, axed Environmental Affairs Minister Deon George, this is another sign that all is not sailing as smoothly as is presented in public. George went on to make allegations that Steenhuisen mismanaged his own finances.
This spat also narrows the difference between the DA’s image, as the party that governs well with minimal scandal which is speedily handled, and the African National Congress, which it excoriates for its corruption and incompetence.
Pointing a finger at Leon and his firm also affects the DA’s image, since Leon’s presence continues to loom large as an active public commentator who rebuilt the party after its abysmal showing under his predecessor in the 1994, when it gleaned only 1.7% of the vote and seemed destined for oblivion.
On its own the crisis may be easy to move past, but it adds to accumulating signs that the DA’s inexperience and lack of preparation to go into national government has left them exposed and unready to hit the ground running as ministers.
Steenhuisen’s comments also strike at the heart of the key strategic decision the DA appears not to have resolved – how it plans to attract black voters without losing its traditional white, coloured and Indian supporters.
In the election campaign of 2024, the DA’s strategy was primarily aimed at protecting its base among minorities from encroachment by the Freedom Front plus on the white right and the Patriotic Alliance among coloureds.
But Hill-Lewis’ statements since winning the DA leadership indicated a wider push for black votes to become the biggest party in the country, and Steenhuisen pursued this theme.
“One of the benefits of going into the GNU has been a huge uptick in black support,” Steenhuisen told Basson. “Our internal tracking shows this. We are regularly into double digits for the first time.”
For decades the DA’s polling has shown less than 10% of black voters would support the DA, and this has often been attributed to an ANC narrative that the DA would bring back apartheid. Steenhuisen said that their actions once in the GNU appeared to have reassured black voters this was not the case.
Steenhuisen described those campaigning against him as “AfriMAGA” a combination of Afriforum, the South African lobby, and US president Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign slogan.
He warned that now that they have succeeded against him, it would be a matter of time before they targeted the other DA ministers. He said the campaign was well organised and operating from several countries outside South Africa.
“It’s very clear there has been a bot operation that has been run for the last couple of months. And it’s very clear it was a very organised campaign, run out of the Netherlands and the US, and they fit very much with the profile that one would see from bot operations.”
He said the campaign against him started after his statements to president Trump in the oval office, when he said there was no white genocide, and that Julius Malema is not in government.
“Almost immediately the hate started and continues to this day,” he said, “that I sold us out at the White House. Am I supposed to lie? There is no white genocide. There is a serious crime problem.”
He said the narrative that Trump adopted came from white sources in South Africa.
“My worry is that there is a grouping that wants to continue to bend the knee, to appease the AfriMAGA crew. And I don’t think that’s the way to grow.
Read more:
“There are people who don’t believe a government with black people can govern. Those votes are not available to us. They don’t share our values. They include nationalists, tribalists, and in some instances racists. And you don’t take our party forward if we keep trying to dance to their tune.
“Black voters need to know the DA is fighting as hard for them as for the others. That’s part of our liberal outlook and tradition. We risk diluting that if we start to play on the same wicket as these guys.”
Steenhuisen said he had raised his concern with the DA parliamentary caucus to be aware of the risk of mishandling its relations with Resolve Communications, which had also represented tobacco interests.
Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.
Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.
If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.
Leave a Reply