RANJENI MUNUSAMY: No more Mr Nice Guy as Maimane seeks to put his stamp on DA
'The country has watched him grow into the job, lead the onslaught on former president Jacob Zuma in parliament and the courts, and increase the DA’s voting base'
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This is at the heart of Maimane’s struggle.
The DA is an amoebic organisation, trying to adapt to current conditions in a society grappling with issues of identity and race, while it must remain true to its core liberal values. As leader, he is responsible for how the organisation adapts and the shape it takes.
The fact that Maimane is an easy-going, nice guy is possibly the reason he had a meteoric rise in the party. He was a suave, new-age man who believed in the dream of a non-racial, equal-opportunity South Africa, and most of all, posed no threat to the DA’s traditional constituency, the white middle class.
Maimane turns 38 on Wednesday, and has already served three years as leader of South Africa’s biggest opposition party.
One of Mmusi Maimane’s shortfalls is that he is too much of a nice guy. When a radio station recently reported that he had claimed to be a “mini Mandela”, he took a public roasting. Maimane did not attempt to explain that the comment was taken out of context and what he actually said was that, like Mandela, people accuse him of selling out. When the truth emerged, Maimane did not taunt the media or demand an apology.At the end of an extensive interview I did with Maimane last week, I asked him how he felt about the episode. “I was livid and hurt,” he responded.I wondered why, then, did he not say anything. I tried to imagine what his opposite number in the EFF, Julius Malema, would have done had something similar happened with him. Perhaps the answer to Maimane’s approach was in what he told me earlier in the interview about how his faith defines him and willingness to want to get things right. “I’m actually not interested in games politicians play,” he said. “At my core, I do care...
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