YONELA DIKO: The DA is suffering from white entitlement disorder

The arrogant demand by the Democratic Alliance (DA) that Cilliers Brink must be restored as mayor of Tshwane is part of a white entitlement disorder, with an insatiable need to dominate partners in whatever working arrangements have been agreed on. 

This is the reason for the unleashing of the white propaganda machinery, against anyone who does not share the same reference point with the nexus of the DA.

There is no political party, no proxy organisation, no funded propaganda machines, no individual that should ever go around carrying a notion that they can tell the African National Congress (ANC) – or any party - what to do. The ANC has never been interested in telling the DA which leaders to elect or which leaders to fire. We hold no such interest or concern.

The DA has been self-destructing with its poor choices of leaders. That has never been ANC business.

The DA is so arrogant that within a few months of partnering with the ANC in government, it has already allocated itself superpowers to dictate to the ANC which part of it can stay and which can go.

It is this arrogance that has made it difficult for the DA to cultivate good relations with coalition partners, which has led us exactly to this point: where the DA lost partners in a coalition that did not involve the ANC, but now expects the ANC to save them if it wants to keep the Government of National Unity (GNU) alive.

LEADERSHIP IS NOT A BIRTHRIGHT FOR WHITE MALES 

There is no entitlement or automatic right to lead the Capital that is reserved for Brink or any other white male or self-entitled individual from the DA.

The party is not the biggest party in any metro outside Cape Town, except a 0.5% edge in Nelson Mandela Bay, and therefore its entitlement to lead over and against other parties can only be explained by a delusion of whiteness's God-given right to rule over us. 

The ANC is the biggest party in almost all the Metros and the fact that smaller parties have previously held a common desire to taste the lagers of State power by coalescing against the ANC, even if they had to betray their own principles and accept being bullied, does not make the DA a rightful heir to the Capital's throne.

The DA has been running Tshwane without the help of the ANC, through a coalition with smaller parties including ActionSA. The ANC is not responsible for the breakdown of the relationship between DA and its coalition partners.

 It is not the duty of the ANC to save the DA from its failed relationships. If the DA had any self-reflective capacity, it would be asking itself why they have a recurring problem of not being able to sustain coalition partners.

Unfortunately, entitlement disorder blinds those who suffer from it from seeing their own shortcomings. The fault is never their own.

GNU IS NOT A TOOL OF CONVENIENCE FOR THE DA

The DA in Tshwane had an opportunity to invite the ANC to be part of the city’s governance immediately after the GNU was signed nationally.

They did not need the ANC then. Now that their mayor is out because its coalition partners have lost confidence in them, they are invoking the GNU agreement nationally and demanding the ANC to rescue them in the Capital.

This is manipulative and offensive. The GNU is not a tool of convenience for the DA.

There was no agreement in the Statement of intent that existing coalition arrangements would have to be disbanded to align all arrangements with the national GNU agreement. The arrangements that have played themselves out since the local government elections of 2021 have remained. 

There may well be an opportunity for new arrangements to be considered and reached in the upcoming local government elections, but that will be dictated by the outcomes of those elections and the prevailing reality.

Until then, the choices of the last local government elections remain in play.

The DA is not a necessary party in this country. The demand for Brink to return is part of the continuing rhetoric by Zille et al that the DA is the source of investor confidence in the country, a page taken directly from the National Party when they were part of the Government of National Unity in 1994. This feeds the illusion that white control of the economy is seen as natural and comforting, and everyone else be damned. 

When the DA was still a 1% party, South Africa was already thriving under the leadership of the ANC. When the National Party left the GNU in 1996 thinking the economy would collapse, the country's economy soared even higher. Even when the National Party ceased to exist, the country moved from strength to strength.

The DA playbook of exaggerating its role in the GNU and in the economy has already been played before and abandoned. 

This country will survive and thrive long after the DA has been forgotten.