Herman Mashaba could soon know whether he will be allowed to serve his notice period as Johannesburg mayor as the DA’s federal executive will urgently meet on Wednesday morning 23 October 2019 to discuss his retirement announcement and the future of the city.

The federal executive will meet at the DA headquarters in Bruma, Johannesburg, after Mashaba followed through on his promise to resign if former party leader Helen Zille was elected as chairperson of the federal council.

In his announcement, Mashaba was scathing of DA members’ resistance during his three years as mayor and the direction he believed the party was taking since its federal council meeting at the weekend.

As federal council chairperson, Zille will chair the federal executive meeting. The federal executive compromises a smaller group of DA leaders than its federal council and meets more regularly to implement council decisions and control and direct party activities.

Mashaba wants to work as Johannesburg mayor until 27 November, but he may be sent packing after announcing his resignation from both his mayorship and the party.

The DA constitution says anyone’s membership can be cancelled if he “publicly declares his or her intention to resign and/or publicly declares his or her resignation from the party”.

The mayor said he was aware the party could immediately terminate his membership, but he wanted to finish certain projects and ensure there was a smooth handover to a new leader in Johannesburg.

Mashaba hammered the DA during his resignation. He said party members had consistently undermined the DA-led coalition in Johannesburg, which relied on EFF support, and the decision to collapse the party’s Johannesburg administration was a “foregone conclusion” and “shortsighted”.

He said Zille’s values were “diametrically opposed” to his own. He added:

“I cannot reconcile myself with a group of people who believe that race is irrelevant in the discussion of inequality and poverty in South Africa in 2019.”

Maimane, who appears vulnerable after Zille beat his candidate, Athol Trollip, for the council chairperson post, could also face a drubbing for appearing to endorse Mashaba’s comments. After Mashaba’s speech, Maimane was gracious as he paid homage to the outgoing mayor, even calling him “a hero”.

The federal executive will also have to deliberate on the party’s role in the Johannesburg council, especially as the EFF may be more hostile after the exit of Mashaba, whom the party co-operated well with, and the election of Zille, whom the party said signalled a turn to the right for the DA.

The DA commissioned a review in the wake of its losses in the 2019 general elections. The review report said it was a mistake to form governments in Johannesburg and Tshwane in 2016 with support from the EFF.

The report, compiled by former party leader Tony Leon, former CEO Ryan Coetzee and Capitec founder Michiel le Roux, said governing with support from the EFF meant the DA diluted the party’s brand and could not fully implement its agenda.

“Having said that, we believe the party should not make a final decision on whether to exit government in Johannesburg or Tshwane without a proper study of voters’ views and a careful consideration of the consequences,” read the report, which was tabled at the weekend’s federal council meeting.

It recommended researching voter perceptions on the DA’s performance in the two cities and then deciding whether to give up its leadership in those cities or find a way to move forward to ensure DA support increases in the 2021 local government elections.

The federal council appeared to make a resolution along those lines, instructing the party’s governance unit to assess the DA’s role in governments and its communication of those roles, including polling.

The report also suggested taking urgent steps to re-engage disillusioned Afrikaans voters.

“It is striking that over a period of many years, the DA failed to heed a number of warnings that it was alienating sections of the white Afrikaans electorate,” it reads.

“Historically, the DA has been extremely sensitive to the prospect of shedding support and would be more alive to the risk of doing so than academics or newspaper editors. That seems no longer to be the case.”

Regarding attracting more black voters, the report said the DA must identify a group of voters of all races and target them without creating the perception that the party compromises its core principles or leaves potential supporters feeling isolated.

It said the DA had adopted policy positions, such as on BEE, that compromised its core principles, and had reacted to events, such as the Schweizer Reneke school saga, in a way that alienated white voters, and that it struggled to promote internal diversity without causing division.

These suggestions essentially question Maimane’s leadership.

The report also found there was no clear policy cohesion on redress. It recommended “the party targets its redress policies at people who currently suffer disadvantage as a consequence of past discrimination and does not use race as a proxy for disadvantage”.

The federal council said the section of the report on political purpose, including redress and race, should be “networked and discussed with all branches and structures with immediate effect”.

Council made the same recommendation regarding the section on party culture, which speaks of problems of authoritarianism, a fear of speaking out, internal litigiousness, destructive behaviour on social media, leaking, and members leveraging race.

Such sections of the report appear to largely go against the values Maimane has introduced since taking over as party leader from Zille in 2015 and the report directly calls for Maimane to resign.

The report said members had suggested “the party leader, while immensely talented, committed to the cause, hardworking and widely liked, can be indecisive, inconsistent and conflict-averse”.

This had led to a lack of clarity about the party’s vision, erosion of unity of purpose, deep divisions, a breakdown of trust and erosion of discipline, it claimed.

Leadership structures were also criticised in the report, which stated:

“Neither the federal council nor the federal executive are used effectively for political decision-making, in particular in respect of strategy and policy.”

While Mashaba will soon exit the DA, it’s just a matter of when, Maimane survived the federal council meeting and appears to want to continue the fight for the soul of the party, even taunting his detractors by praising the outgoing Johannesburg mayor.

The DA is due to hold a policy congress, its first, and then an early elective congress in 2020. Maimane’s fate, if he hangs on, along with the DA’s, will then be decided by a much larger group of party members. DM