There were rumblings over the weekend of a fallout between former DA leader Mmusi Maimane and the party’s former Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba. They walked out of the party together in October, severely disgruntled, shortly after the return of former leader Helen Zille to the position of federal council chair. 

At issue now seems to be differences over the road towards the 2021 local government elections.

“Mashaba is eager to contest elections next year, whereas Mmusi is saying let there be a strong people’s movement first,” an insider said. On Sunday, Mashaba told City Press he would be announcing the launch of a new political party by the end of June 2020, and this would spring from the People’s Dialogue platform he started after leaving the DA. The aim of this platform was to gather information and listen to what ordinary people had to say about issues that affected them. Mashaba didn’t want to confirm whether Maimane was part of his plan.

On Sunday evening Maimane cryptically tweeted: “Our movement for change is coming. Watch this space. It’s time we take back this space. Let the citizens arise.”

By the next evening, Maimane told Thabiso Kotane on Power FM that he would focus on building a movement as the gap between politicians and ordinary people in the country had become too big.

“To me, to add another political party to the plethora of parties that are available, would be to add party number 49 in the 48 that are there, and I am saying that’s not the immediate solution of our country. Actually, what we need is to ask the 18 million South Africans why they didn’t vote last year,” he said.

“When I was in Parliament one of the saddest things I experienced was that over a long period of time I can maybe remember a few times when we discussed issues that in fact affect citizens,” he added later.

Maimane hinted that he and Mashaba were walking different paths for now, but could meet up again in future.

“Herman Mashaba has gone the route of a political party — as he has communicated — and I think that’s well and good. We’ll engage progressively over time, but I’m certainly focused on building this movement. I think we need a movement in this country.” He said he wasn’t “shut out to” working with Mashaba, but would like to build a movement for now. Maimane said he would go to KwaZulu-Natal over the coming weekend to talk to more people there (Mashaba is set to follow a week later). For now, he was focused on recruiting activists. 

If the differences between the two are about who should lead this movement, neither Maimane nor Mashaba has said it aloud, but it seems to be lurking in the subtext. Sakina Kamwendo challenged Maimane on her SABC Morning Live show on Tuesday morning about the differences between the two, as they both seem to have the 2021 elections as their end goal.

Maimane confirmed that Mashaba “has moved towards a political party” and “certainly, we are not part”. Maimane did say their “technical teams” would talk.

“This is a movement for change. I want to build a broader movement, he has focused on a political party.” He said he would engage Mashaba because he’d want to work with him, but for now “let’s build a movement”. After Kamwendo pressed him, Maimane admitted that the registration of a party ahead of 2021 could happen should “citizens” decide that this was necessary.

“The big distinction here is that we are not just saying we are a party for a party’s sake. I’m not here to contest 2021 or anything like that.” 

Maimane said his movement was focused on three things: changing the electoral system, using technology to hold public representatives accountable, and focusing on creating a “central movement around a pact, akin to the UDF”, which in the 1980s was a civil society movement fighting apartheid when the ANC was banned.

He would also talk to smaller parties and movements to try to involve them in this movement. By the sound of it, Maimane still embraces much the same values as he did in the DA, for example rectifying historical wrongs through affirmative action.

As for Mashaba, he is going ahead with his public consultations, which on Tuesday took the form of speaking to the victims of the 2016 Lily Mine disaster. He tweeted that his People’s Dialogue had an “overwhelmingly positive response” in its first six weeks.

“It is clear that SAns are calling for a new movement to build a SA that works for all its people,” he tweeted, posting a link to the interim report’s findings.

A number of recent attempts to launch political parties off popular platforms such as these have failed.

Makhosi Khoza, a former ANC MP who has now teamed up with Mashaba, started the African Democratic Change before the 2019 elections, but performed dismally. Mamphela Ramphele’s Agang managed to shore up a couple of seats in the 2014 elections, but she left the party soon after and it’s ceased to be a player in Parliament. The Congress of the People started as a broad people’s movement at the end of 2008 when former ANC leaders unhappy with Jacob Zuma’s leadership rallied together. It went down to three National Assembly seats in the 2019 elections, after bagging 30 in 2009.

So far, perhaps, the most successful party has been Patricia de Lille’s Good. It bagged two National Assembly seats in the May 2019 elections and De Lille was appointed Public Works minister in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet soon after. DM