“Kwaze kwa’lula ukukuthanda. You’re so easy to love. He’s my African man,” sing DA supporters while musician Bucie sings and twerks at Jabulani Technical High School. Around 800 members sit in rows around a stage. Big screens hang on either side of the hall. The spotlights hit DA Gauteng leader John Moodey. SA is ready for change, he says, just like in 1976.

The lights go out and images appear on the screens: DA rallies, South Africans cheering with flags, Mmusi in a march, Mmusi meeting people, Mmusi delivering speeches. He takes to the stage and quotes Nelson Mandela, “We are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free.”

In equal parts the charismatic pastor, Obama-esque orator and local community leader, Mamaine empathises with those struggling to live a decent life before outlining the DA’s Vision 2029. He doesn’t explain the details, but Vision 2029 is an emotional appeal to a future that recognises and promotes the inherent potential of all South Africans, where dedication and sacrifice are rewarded.

Maimane turns to the big screen. Two videos explain the vision. The first takes you to the year 2029. The party’s been in the Union Buildings for a decade and a news placard says it just won 59 percent in the 2029 elections. Neatly dressed students answer questions in a classroom. A welder lifts his mask. White collar workers smile. Police officers without weapons make an arrest. A news broadcast features SA’s highest matric pass rate, GDP hitting eight percent growth, and a cross going through an image of Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla home. Aerial shots pan across Joburg and Cape Town. A pair of hands cradle a seedling in soil.

The second video follows Thandeka, born and raised in a South Africa governed by the DA. In her hypothetical life, the health services work and communities look after each other. Teachers are passionate. Thandeka’s parents work hard, have a small but nice home, and make sacrifices for their children. She studies – maths and science until matric – before moving to the city for varsity. It’s daunting but safe. She works, marries, gets her own house and has a daughter. Family is important.

“I realised that because of my parents and their support, the opportunities I was provided with as well as my hard work, I was able to make it here, I was able to reach my full potential. And now I’m in a position to ensure my daughter is able to achieve even more,” says Thandeka, a portrait of her family on screen.

“Halala Thandeka!” someone in the crowd yells.

If the DA governs the country from 2019 to 2029, it says corruption will be at its lowest levels. The police will be better trained, reducing crime, and structural and spatial inequalities will be removed. The justice system will work, GDP will hit eight percent and the economy will be truly transformed. Education quality will improve and South Africa will be a hub of innovation. The unemployment rate will halve. Those who need it will get social security. The health system will be effective. There will be 15 cabinet ministers in a “lean, clean, efficient and citizen-oriented” government.

“This is about us, saying the world we want to see looks like this,” explains Maimane later in the school principal’s office. “To sum it up, it’s where an individual who comes from a supportive environment can work hard to really achieve what true freedom is, which is the choice to become anything they want to become… It opens up the rights of individuals to be able to advance in society.”

Thandeka’s future sounds rosy, but everyone wants to know how the DA would make it happen. It’s important to launch the broad vision first, says Maimane, rather than release the policies to achieve that vision. Dropping them at once would be cumbersome, he says, and the party will release the policies over time.

Until the details are available, Vision 2029 recognises a future many people aspire to but fails to articulate how it will be achieved or how the DA is best placed to deliver a better future compared to other political parties. For now, it’s hype searching for substance.

Photo: DA supporters listen to party leader Mmusi Maimane’s Vision 2029. (Greg Nicolson)

“I think it’s us turning and saying, whilst everybody’s talking about the past we want to be talking about tomorrow,” says Maimane. He offers some clarity on how Vision 2029 could differ from an ANC plan. It will prioritise the individual rather than the state and small businesses rather than state-led growth. It’s not quite an alternative to the National Development Plan (NDP) as some policies will overlap and the party plans to pursue Vision 2029, which offers a sort of litmus test for future policy ideas, regardless of what happens with the NDP.

In the run up to the 2014 elections, the DA tried to articulate to voters who the party is and what it stands for, aiming to challenge notions that it’s a white party that could reverse the country’s democratic progress. Maimane, the DA’s first black leader, says in the past it had to balance “the fears of the minority and the aspirations of the majority.” Vision 2029 is framed in the values of non-racialism and unity, but targets the majority of South Africans.

“We are saying we want to cross over to a point where we say let’s articulate a vision where South Africans who buy into that vision must be a part of. It’s a significant transition. It’s a transition that says let’s paint a picture of South Africa’s future with or without the ANC, to be quite frank,” says Maimane.

Sitting in the Jabulani Technical High School hall, the DA supporters seem to buy the vision. But until the policies are released, there’s no way of judging its credibility or whether the DA is underestimating the challenges of governing nationally. For now, the years 2016 and 2019 are more important for the party and the vision is about aligning the DA with the black majority whose votes it needs, a hopeful future, and broad values like supporting a functional government and rewarding hard work. DM

Main photo: DA leader Mmusi Maimane at the launch of the party’s Vision 2029 at Jabulani Technical High School. (Greg Nicolson)