The Democratic Alliance (DA) is not thinking like a party in power – at least not ahead of its weekend federal congress at the Tshwane Events Centre, where it could conceivably have been plotting to take over power in an opposition coalition in next year’s general elections had Cyril Ramaphosa not happened to the ANC and South Africa. For one, the stakes aren’t presidential enough yet for anyone to step forward to contest Mmusi Maimane as leader.

Also, its debates ahead of congress are inward-looking and about party constitutional amendments, rather than the actual policies on land and the economy a governing party would need to rule the country – or to make coalition deals with like-minded opposition parties.

In fact, the Ramaphoria that has ensued in South Africa – including among present and potential DA voters – after the resignation of former president Jacob Zuma on Valentine’s Day caught the party off-guard.

An insider said: “There was no real plan for Cyril’s election. We were caught flatfooted by that.”

Buoyed by unexpected successes in the 2016 local government elections – the DA now has four mayors in metros and the opposition share of the national vote grew sharply – there was a feeling that the party could drive the ANC to below 50% nationally in the next general election and take power in a coalition government.

Its recent PR debacle about the land issue points to a need for the party to find, first, a common identity, and then one voice to speak on contentious matters such as these.

The debate about diversity within the party speaks to this identity. It had some arguing that an inclusion of “diversity” in the party’s Values Charter would set it in an anti-liberal, nationalist direction. It could even lead to quotas.

Party leader Mmusi Maimane, who is sponsoring this amendment, said liberal democratic values in Africa aren’t necessarily the same as in Europe or America.

Read in conjunction with the other values, such as individual freedom and opportunities for all, and in a context like South Africa, diversity becomes important.

He said people with diverse backgrounds offered diverse views, but this didn’t mean that groups that are affected by a problem should be the only ones fighting for those rights.

“If the rights of a group of people are undermined, we are all undermined.”

The value of diversity would distinguish the DA from the Economic Freedom Fighters, which is “pursuing a fairly race-based agenda, and the ANC, which has surrendered its policy to the EFF”, he said. It also didn’t mean quotas, but rather attracting a diverse pool of talent to choose from, even if that pool wasn’t immediately reflected in, say, the leadership.

“The DA with no quotas has had more women leaders than any other party,” Maimane said.

Opinions on the changes in the DA aren’t really divided along the lines of factions, as has been the case in the ANC in 2017, but the diversity issue could place Maimane in space he’d have to navigate carefully.

There’s been a general view that support for his diversity stance comes mainly from a “black caucus” in the party, while two liberal MPs, in the form of Gavin Davis, a number one supporter of Maimane’s election three years ago, and Michael Cardo, are seen as in opposition to the way it’s worded. If Maimane comes out overtly in support of one side or the other, it could be seen as a racial issue, and perceptions are as important in politics as reality.

The party currently lacks diversity where it matters. While it’s true that Helen Zille rose to the leadership without the help of quotas (and is now the party’s only premier, in the Western Cape), and while the party has women spokespeople and a mayor in the form of Patricia de Lille (holding on tenuously in Cape Town), the small body of people who make the day-to-day decisions about administration and party spending, the national management committee, is male and mostly white.

The national management committee consists of the leader and the parliamentary leader (currently the same person in the form of Maimane), the chief executive officer, Paul Boughey, the chairperson of the federal council, James Selfe, the federal chairperson, Athol Trollip, his deputy Thomas Walters, the chair of federal finance, Alf Lees, and the chief whip, John Steenhuisen.

This committee also has the power to co-opt leaders to serve on it, such as, say, mayors. A constitutional amendment will make the national management committee even smaller by removing the chief whip, the chair of the federal finance committee, the deputy federal chairperson, as well as the parliamentary leader.

The reason given is that the national management committee is intended to serve as a “sounding board” for the leader and its membership should be flexible, and the leader should be able to co-opt members as s/he sees fit.

Selfe, who is also on the party’s constitutional review committee which proposed the amendments, said he held no personal view on these, but the idea was “that the ‘right people’ are in the room when a matter of a particular nature is discussed”.

Some party leaders, like Steenhuisen, are unhappy. The amendment would strip him of real power within the party at a time when he was convinced to change his mind about running against Selfe, who is one of the most powerful people in the DA and who is uncontested, again.

The NMC “is not a Politburo” with centralised power, Steenhuisen wrote in a letter to delegates over the weekend, Rather, “it is a federal structure tasked with the important function of the day-to-day management of our party” and it needs proper checks and balances.

Another proposal causing dissent is the extension of the leader’s term from three to five years. Selfe said the argument in favour was that congress “is a very costly and staff-intensive matter, all for one-and-a-half days of the party talking to itself”.

Steenhuisen in his letter, however, said a congress should rather be a low-key gathering every three years than a “glitzy made-for-television extravaganza” every five years, for the party to take stock of itself and also to hold leadership to account.

Another party member said a leadership contest every five years would raise the stakes and lead to all-or-nothing battles, as in the ANC.

A deputy for Maimane will also be on the agenda, and although it’s been a low-key debate, some delegates suggest it could be big on the congress floor.

One of the proposers, Gauteng MPL Makashule Gana, said it was about “a need to strengthen the national structure politically” at a time when the federal leader had more work.

“It is about having more leaders to be able to service our voters, members and activists,” he said.

He said it wasn’t about a set succession plan, one of the arguments that those chosen as congress delegates had against this proposal.

Whether the party will emerge from this congress with a voice or not, it’s certain to emerge changed. DM

Photo: Leader of the oppositional Democratic Alliance (DA) party, Mmusi Maimane (C) at the launch of the party’s election manifesto in Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 April 2016. EPA/Kevin Sutherland