The DA’s message must move closer to mainstream black opinion
This might not win it the next election, but will make it a credible coalition partner, currently its only plausible route into government
The messages the official opposition sends the country won’t decide who wins the next election. But they could decide who governs. Which is why it needs to move closer to mainstream black opinion. It takes a dramatic incident like Helen Zille’s on-off suspension to focus attention on the official opposition: despite the fact that the DA now governs half the country’s metropolitan governments and might play a role in government after the 2019 election, political discussion is still dominated by the ANC. We talk about the DA rarely, and then often only in passing. This seems odd but isn’t. It reflects a reality which most of us sense, whatever our political loyalties – that who governs after 2019 still depends on what happens in the ANC, not what the DA does. It has become common to point out that the DA governs its metros not because it won many voters from the ANC but because its voters flocked to the polls while many of the ANC’s stayed away. Since last year’s local elections, by-e...
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