Lindiwe Mazibuko's rise and tragic fall amid DA turmoil and misaligned expectations

Lindiwe Mazibuko was meant to be the vanguard of the Democratic Alliance’s struggle to convince black South Africans that the party was serious in its ambition to be a party for all. Her leadership would help overcome black people’s distrust of the party. This strategy became a tragedy.

At the time of the 2009 general election DA leader Helen Zille determined that the party would be less confrontational in its approach to the electorate by rooting its message in “our love for diversity”.

On 25 January 2009, she said that DA candidates should “embrace diversity and offer distinguished service”. She had been at the forefront of recruiting a diverse range of candidates. Among them were the respected academic Wilmot James, highly regarded KwaZulu-Natal politician Khosi Mdlalose, well known radio personality Niekie van den Berg, former president of AgriSA Lourie Bosman, Head of Inspections for the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons Albert Fritz, as well as Bev Abrahams and Lindiwe Mazibuko who had emerged with distinction through our own ranks. 

Within the following five years, all had left the DA.

Diversity was promoted in the 2009 election campaign, as it was after the election. No rally, no town hall meeting, no event was planned without considering diversity in the line-up of speakers and other participants. 

The DA increased its support in 2009, but we needed to do something very significant to attract more black voters.

Thirty months after an election, in caucuses where we do not govern, members of those caucuses reviewed their leader and whip(s). So in October 2011 the DA’s parliamentary caucus’ leadership was challenged. It was felt that a black leader would be the significant event that could earn black voter trust. The person in mind was Lindiwe Mazibuko. 

Lindiwe was smart, incisive and very personable, but she had only been in Parliament since 2009. Her contributions to debates had been solid rather than spectacular, but good enough for her to be taken seriously as a potential leader. And so it was that a couple of us met in the lounge of Leeuwenhof, Helen’s official residence, to determine whether Lindiwe was electable. We thought so, but only if Helen canvassed some of the more difficult customers. 

It was a hard sell. MPs raised concerns about her age (about 30 at the time), inexperience (only served two-and-a-half years in Parliament) and lifestyle (she was frequently late for meetings, having overslept). But the doubtfuls shrunk as they were canvassed by Helen. 

Leader of the opposition

Lindiwe won the caucus election, ousting Athol Trollip to become the leader of the opposition. 

The day she was elected, I spoke to Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, then minister of Correctional Services and a distant relation of Lindiwe’s. She was distressed at the result. She said: “You will destroy her.” Prophetic words indeed. 

Lindiwe began promisingly: her communications were incisive and “on message”. It became clear she was her own person, and wanted to run the caucus her way. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the arena of communications. 

Lindiwe wanted parliamentary communications to be separate from those of the rest of the party. In doing so, she was speaking on behalf of many MPs who disliked their statements being “spiked” on account of them being — very often — verbose/off message/conflicting with some other important announcement. The person who did the “spiking” was Gavin Davis, the executive director of communications.

So Lindiwe’s office devised a new communications mechanism. Statements would, in the first instance, be vetted by David Maynier MP, who was the parliamentary whip in charge of communications.

This was unacceptable to Helen for a number of reasons. Despite her reaction being quite disproportionate to the issue the plan was abandoned, but it planted the seed that Lindiwe wanted to be independent of the national leader.

This impression was bolstered by the fact that Lindiwe reshuffled the shadow cabinet. When Helen queried the wisdom and timing of this, Lindiwe told her very firmly that it was her prerogative. This worsened tensions. 

As parliamentary leader, Lindiwe had to put up with the most appalling abuse — her weight, her dress sense, the slur that she was a “coconut”, her age and inexperience, and her accent were all exploited by the ANC. Her case was not helped by instituting a more rigorous Performance Development and Management System that measured all DA public representatives’ performance. Also, she did not socialise around the braai at Acacia Park, the parliamentary village in which most up-country MPs stayed.

Deteriorating relations with Zille

While all this was happening, her relations with Helen continued to deteriorate. Helen started saying that it was a mistake to have backed Lindiwe.

And then, what Helen termed the “plane crash” happened. Amendments to the Employment Equity Act were discussed by the caucus in October 2013. It was part of a suite of legislation that further entrenched racial quotas in employment and procurement, and thereby hugely empowered the already empowered.

We should have opposed the bill but, remember, we wanted to diversify the party and make it a party for all the people. So we had to exercise care in how we communicated this opposition.

In a nutshell, the Amendment Bill was supported by the party in the National Assembly, owing to an inexperienced researcher, spokespersons who were fast asleep, and a caucus management that did not deal properly with legislation. Helen regarded the bill as wrong and the fact that we had supported it was extremely bad for our electorate, who would be disadvantaged by it. She insisted that the party oppose it in the National Council of Provinces, the second chamber of Parliament, to win back lost ground.

Lindiwe — backed by parliamentary caucus chair Wilmot James — argued that this was unwarranted interference in caucus affairs. Helen, as national leader, believed that she had to protect the broader interests of the party. She spoke — and wrote — very forthrightly on the subject. 

The fight went out of Lindiwe; certainly the fun had. She started exploring opportunities. Harvard University was chosen. Just after the 2014 election results were certified Lindiwe told Helen that she was stepping down as leader of the opposition, and resigned as an MP. 

I doubt that Lindiwe would have again been elected as caucus leader. We had engaged with Mamphela Ramphele with a view to her coming to Parliament. Lindiwe would also compete with Mmusi Maimane, who was elected to Parliament in 2014. 

Lindiwe had taken a great deal of flak for how she undertook her role as caucus leader, and either Mamphela or Mmusi could have stood against her and won.

Lindiwe’s story is one of the most tragic I experienced in my career. I witnessed a vibrant, witty, fun-loving, generous human being crushed by forces which, if she had done things differently, might never have arisen. Yet it was dreadful, almost Shakespearean. It left me profoundly depressed. DM

***

Daily Maverick sent Lindiwe Mazibuko, Helen Zille and Gavin Davis questions related to claims in Selfe’s memoirs. Mazibuko kindly responded in detail to each claim, which we publish below. Zille's and Davis’ input are included further down.

Lindiwe Mazibuko

DM: Selfe claimed: “Lindiwe Mazibuko was meant to be the vanguard of the Democratic Alliance’s struggle to convince black South Africans that the party was serious in its ambition to be a party for all. Her leadership would help overcome black people’s distrust of the party. This strategy became a tragedy.” Please could you comment?

LM: James is absolutely right. It was never my intention that I or my leadership should represent the lynchpin of the DA’s strategy to become a party for all the people. This is a wild expectation for anyone to have to bear. But it was the logical outcome of our campaign. When Wilmot (James) and I first scheduled a meeting at Leuwenhoof with Helen to tell her that I had decided to contest for leader of the opposition, her immediate response was to panic. She even told us if I lost this election, she would have to resign, because it would be a wholesale rejection of her vision for the future of the DA as an inclusive political party for all South Africans. But I wasn’t running to cement Helen’s legacy. I had spent the first two years of my career in Parliament as the DA’s national spokesperson, defending every stupid, wrong-headed and bizarre decision DA leaders were making up and down the country, almost as if I had been in the room when these decisions were being made. 

I defended open toilets, I defended 10-man cabinet appointments, I apologised for and contextualised Verwoerd statues and busts in DA-run city councils. And as an unelected member of the party’s federal executive, I had no authority to lobby against or challenge these shenanigans. The executive would decide on our position, and I would have to go out and sell it. So by the time the mid-term elections came around, and a group of us decided it was time for change in Parliament, I stepped up because I wanted the opportunity to do more than make the DA “look” better; I wanted to be a decision maker, with as central a role in deciding the party’s trajectory as I had in defending it. This strategy was indeed a tragedy for all involved — James is correct. And I learned that as a leader, you can’t spend every day wanting more and better for an organisation than it wants for itself.

DM: Selfe wrote that you began your career in the DA as parliamentary caucus leader promisingly: your communications were “incisive and on message. It became clear [you were your] own person, and wanted to run the caucus [your] way. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the area of communications.” Selfe further claimed: “Lindiwe wanted parliamentary communications to be separate from those of the rest of the party. In doing so, she was speaking on behalf of many MPs who disliked their statements being ‘spiked’ on account of them being — very often — verbose/off message/conflicting with some other important announcement. The person who did the ‘spiking’ was Gavin Davis, the executive director of communications. So Lindiwe’s office devised a new communications mechanism. Statements would, in the first instance, be vetted by David Maynier MP, who was the parliamentary whip in charge of communications. This was unacceptable to Helen for a number of reasons. Despite her reaction being quite disproportionate to the issue the plan was abandoned, but it planted the seed that Lindiwe wanted to be independent of the national leader. This impression was bolstered by the fact that Lindiwe reshuffled the shadow cabinet. When Helen queried the wisdom and timing of this, Lindiwe told her very firmly that it was her prerogative. This worsened tensions.” Please could you comment?

LM: Again, this is spot on. Communications was one of my major preoccupations because by the time I was elected leader of the opposition, I had spent two years as national spokesperson observing my former colleagues in the party’s senior professional staff more or less bullying my current colleagues in the party’s parliamentary caucus. I could see and understand both sides — MPs don’t draft speeches or press statements based on what is going to make national headlines. They write about the issues they are currently wrestling with. 

When you work seven days a week in two provinces and spend late nights in committee meetings discussing the minutiae of energy policy and legislation, it makes sense that, over time, you start to believe that this very important issue is the most important challenge facing the country at that moment. The professional staff, however, had a bird’s eye view of the macro-reality: some issues mattered on some days and not on others. But for the first time, I could see how their “spiking” MPs’ hard work and ideas was often done in a manner that was condescending, inconsiderate, and dare I say, smug. 

Of course, I didn’t have this problem. I was a member of both clubs — professionals and politicians — and, crucially, I was not afraid to wade into communications nightmares because, essentially, it was my job as national spokesperson. So I was useful (in a non-pejorative sense) and accepted and had my ideas taken seriously by both staff and politicians. My parliamentary colleagues had no such relationship with the professional staff, so I decided it was time to balance the decision making. Instead of having a professional staff member decide what MPs could say and when, a member of their own leadership — whose portfolio was parliamentary communications — would be part of the decision making around day to day communications management. James is also right to point out that this was a “nothing” issue that was blown out of proportion based on one person’s paranoia.

I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how much of the campaign for leader of the opposition I spent answering questions in the press and among my colleagues about whether I would be “remote controlled from Wale Street”. The expression used was always identical, as if a meeting had been called and it was agreed that this was the cleverest way to phrase the question. (That phrasing, of course, was the centre of our opponents’ campaign.) 

I wasn’t running to be Helen’s personal emissary to Parliament. Wilmot, Watty and I had a vision for how the DA could do better in Parliament and how MPs could thrive in their complex and difficult positions. We reiterated this relentlessly in discussions and interviews and press conferences, and publicised our plans for all to see. So I was taken aback when, following my election, it became clear that I was expected to be Helen’s proxy to Parliament. 

There was a clear misalignment of expectations and an erroneous belief in her team that we had just been saying all those nice things on the campaign trail to get me into office, and once the job was done, I would fall into line. But I was leading almost 100 MPs, many of whom hadn’t voted for me, and to whom I had made a series of commitments that I intended to honour. I was firm on this issue and you could say it was not taken well.

DM: As parliamentary leader, Selfe alleged that you had to put up with what he called “the most appalling abuse”. “Her weight, her dress sense, the slur that she was a ‘coconut’, her age and inexperience, and her accent were all exploited by the ANC. Her case was not helped by instituting a more rigorous Performance Development and Management System, which measured all DA public representatives’ performance. Also, she did not socialise around the braai at Acacia Park, the parliamentary village in which most up-country MPs stayed.” Please could you comment?

LM: Oh, James is absolutely right. I cared very deeply about the work, less so about the socialising. One of the most important lessons I learned during my term in office was about relationships in politics: they are its lifeblood, and must be nurtured with the same level of care and diligence as the work itself. I didn’t get that at the time. So I was a rare fixture at the braai — which many of my colleagues didn’t appreciate. I understand better now why this was the case. My commitment to excellence, however, remains wholly undiminished.

DM: Selfe claimed that while this was all happening, your relations with Helen Zille “continued to deteriorate”. Please could you comment?

LM: He is quite right. They deteriorated quite precipitously. A combination of hugely misaligned expectations and the collision of an unstoppable force with an immovable object.

DM: Selfe then wrote about the amendments to the Employment Equity Act which were discussed by the caucus in October 2013. Selfe alleges: “We should have opposed the bill but, remember, we wanted to diversify the party and make it a party for all the people. So we had to exercise care in how we communicated this opposition. In a nutshell, the Amendment Bill was supported by the party in the National Assembly, owing to an inexperienced researcher, spokespersons who were fast asleep, and a caucus management that did not deal properly with legislation. Helen regarded the bill as wrong, and the fact that we had supported it was extremely bad for our electorate, who would be disadvantaged by it. She insisted that the party oppose it in the National Council of Provinces, the second chamber of Parliament, to win back lost ground. Lindiwe — backed by parliamentary caucus chair Wilmot James — argued that this was unwarranted interference in caucus affairs. Helen, as national leader, believed that she had to protect the broader interests of the party. She spoke — and wrote — very forthrightly on the subject.”  Please could you comment?

LM: Sometimes the issue is about the issue, and sometimes the issue is a proxy for a deeper problem. My view was that some people in the DA simply didn’t want to lead — to do the difficult but necessary work of transforming the party into a trustworthy custodian of South Africa’s future. They were focused entirely on party image — did the party look good to the press and the voters? Were the optics and visuals “diverse”? — rather than on legitimate transformation. For me, the journey into the trenches of BBBEE and BEE policy in the DA began with a short article Carol Paton wrote in the Financial Mail sometime before the 2011 local government elections. In it, she pointed out that the DA-led City of Cape Town was implementing BBBEE in its procurement practices better than any metro municipality in the country run by the ANC. I remember what a fuss people made about this article — it was passed relentlessly around the party as an example of the kind of communication we should be doing about the DA’s governance record. There was talk of producing billboards that read: “The DA Implements BBBEE Better Than The ANC” to show black voters we could be “trusted” with transformation in South Africa. But my question was: Are we celebrating this because it looks good and will “sell”, or are we doing it because this organisation has done the work, and is truly committed to the principles of black economic empowerment and the codes of good practice. The question was not a welcome one.

But an opportunity to do the work came to us when two amendment bills — one from the Department of Trade and Industry and the other from Labour — were tabled in the National Assembly. We couldn’t make billboards about our BBBEE prowess while voting against its enabling legislation in Parliament. Some of my fellow young black colleagues representing the party around the country picked up the phone and told me this was an existential question that could not be fudged. 

We needed to have the debate and decide who and what this party really was. It didn’t take long to see where everyone stood. Transformation was not a core value embedded in the party’s leadership; it was a communications tool for convincing the voters that the DA was transforming, whether or not this was the case — that’s why it was so important for black leaders like me to “just be visible”. What there was actually a deep commitment to was preserving the status quo. It was sad to see, but I think for a lot of progressive representatives in the DA — black and white — it was the answer to a question that had bothered them for some time.

Helen Zille

DM: Selfe wrote that Lindiwe’s career in the DA as parliamentary caucus leader began promisingly: her communications were “incisive and ‘on message’. It became clear she was her own person, and wanted to run the caucus her way. Nowhere was this more apparent than in  the arena of communications.”

HZ: This is the opposite of the truth.  Lindiwe set up her own office from the start and had carte blanche to manage her own communications and fulfil her own role in Parliament supported by her choice of staff, which were the best the party had to offer. To help her, I encouraged members of my own staff, who she had approached to join her office, to do so.  Despite her autonomy in her role, she certainly did not think her communications were “incisive and on message” because she fired her excellent newly appointed chief of staff within three weeks of his appointment, for two reasons.  One was that, according to her, he was not getting her enough good publicity. The second reason was that he was not, in her view, filling staff vacancies in her office quickly enough. This is a matter of record, which I have set out before and which can be corroborated from other sources.

DM: Selfe further alleges: “Lindiwe wanted parliamentary communications to be separate from those of the rest of the party. In doing so, she was speaking on behalf of many MPs who disliked their statements being ‘spiked’ on account of them being — very often — verbose/off message/conflicting with some other important announcement. The person who did the ‘spiking’ was Gavin Davis, the executive director of communications. So Lindiwe’s office devised a new communications mechanism. Statements would, in the first instance, be vetted by David Maynier MP, who was the parliamentary whip in charge of communications. This was unacceptable to Helen for a number of reasons. Despite her reaction being quite disproportionate to the issue the plan was abandoned, but it planted the seed that Lindiwe wanted to be independent of the national leader. This impression was bolstered by the fact that Lindiwe reshuffled the shadow cabinet. When Helen queried the wisdom and timing of this, Lindiwe told her very firmly that  it was her prerogative. This worsened tensions.

HZ: It is absurd to think that a leader of a caucus (even if it is the Parliamentary caucus) can unilaterally change a party’s entire communication system, agreed to and implemented by party structures, without any discussion with the party leader or the Federal Executive.

Furthermore, this badly botched process did not plant the seed with Lindiwe to be independent of the national leader.  She had established her independence from day one, obviously within the parameters of party policy and procedures.  I had fully accepted it.  On major policy issues, I insisted on having some say, as an ex-officio member of the caucus, and because, as party leader, I would be held accountable for the consequences of these decisions.  She could not run the caucus as an island, with no linkages to the party or policy.

I made this clear, which was entirely proportionate to the situation.   

If anything, I was criticised by many members of the Parliamentary caucus for being “too hands off” and allowing the management and policy drift of the caucus to escalate unabated. 

Before the mid-term election when Lindiwe was elected, I had persuaded many caucus members to vote for her as caucus leader, despite the resistance many showed to electing a leader who was only halfway through her first term as an MP.  Within the first year of her election to the leadership, many MPs pointed to the cumulative impact of her relative inexperience, and told me bluntly that I had been wrong to back her, and even more wrong to persuade them to back her. I had to concede their valid points. I can substantiate this with many examples if these are needed, although it is difficult to comprehend why this issue has even been dragged up at all.

The biggest reversal for Lindiwe’s leadership in the Parliamentary caucus came within a year, when she implemented a major reshuffle of the shadow cabinet in 2012, without consulting me so shortly after her election, nor adequately communicating with her caucus colleagues.  Many of them were so alienated by her approach that they made it clear they would not support her for another term as caucus leader —  a sentiment widespread enough to prompt her to apply to study at Harvard rather than face another caucus election. 

DM: Selfe alleges that as parliamentary leader Mazibuko “had to put up with the most appalling abuse” with regard to her weight, dress sense and age and inexperience, among other things. He claims that: “While all this was happening, her relations with Helen continued to deteriorate. Helen started saying that it was a mistake to have backed Lindiwe.”

HZ: I have never abused anyone because of their weight or age, (although to be fair, Selfe does not allege I did). However, the juxtaposition of this observation with the description of Lindiwe and my deteriorating relationship, may well imply to some readers that I engaged in personal abuse. Of course I did not. It is, however, a sad fact that every politician has to deal with extreme and unfounded personal abuse on just about every aspect of their lives, real and imagined, especially from clueless trolls on social media. If you start climbing the greasy pole, you must expect abuse to escalate. It is the nature of the beast. If you can’t take it, get out of the kitchen.

DM: “Helen started saying that it was a mistake to have backed Lindiwe. And then, what Helen termed the ‘plane crash’ happened. Amendments to the Employment Equity Act were discussed by the caucus in October 2013. It was part of a suite of legislation which further entrenched racial quotas in employment and procurement, and thereby hugely empowered the already empowered.”

HZ: The plane crash was indeed the culmination of a series of blunders in the management of the caucus.  The legislation had been supported in Parliament without the caucus or myself having received a proper briefing, and against the policy guidelines on Employment Equity that I had clearly outlined for the caucus in writing to guide our response on the legislation.  

In the end, an unmandated decision was taken to support this very seriously flawed legislation, with profoundly serious public consequences that I had to try to remedy after the fact. I felt I had to level with the public and explain how things had gone so wrong. My close colleagues encouraged me not to go public, because of the inevitable escalation in tensions with Lindiwe that would follow.  

Significantly, it was none other than James Selfe who finally persuaded me to issue my weekly newsletter explaining to the public how the plane crash had happened, in fine detail. In other words, it was James who insisted I publicly disclose the management and policy shambles in the Parliamentary caucus, despite the predictable consequences it would have. I have recorded all of this in my autobiography: “Not Without a Fight”. Given these facts, it is rich indeed that James now paints Lindiwe as the victim.

Gavin Davis

DM: Selfe wrote that Lindiwe Mazibuko’s career in the DA as parliamentary caucus leader began promisingly: her communications were “incisive and ‘on message’. It became clear she was her own person, and wanted to run the caucus her way. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the arena of communications.” He further alleges: “Lindiwe wanted parliamentary communications to be separate from those of the rest of the party. In doing so, she was speaking on behalf of many MPs who disliked their statements being ‘spiked’ on account of them being — very often — verbose/off message/conflicting with some other important announcement. The person who did the ‘spiking’ was Gavin Davis, the executive director of communications. So Lindiwe’s office devised a new communications mechanism. Statements would, in the first instance, be vetted by David Maynier MP, who was the parliamentary whip in charge of communications. This was unacceptable to Helen for a number of reasons.” Please could you comment?

GD: As the communications director it was my responsibility to make sure that all party communications were in line with the party’s communication strategy. I worked closely with David Maynier, the caucus media whip, to make sure that all press releases proposed by MPs were “on message” and didn’t detract from the party’s strategic objectives. I don’t recall an issue with David “vetting” statements, nor did Helen have a problem with him doing so. 

Wilmot James and Marian Shinn comment: For 43 years, James Selfe (1955-2024) played a significant role in the evolution of South Africa’s major liberal political party — now known as the Democratic Alliance. He started as a researcher in the erstwhile Progressive Federal Party in 1978, moved on to become its communications director and then executive director. For many years, until 2019, he served as the Democratic Alliance’s Federal Council chairperson, the party’s highest decision-making body.

His career as a Member of Parliament started in 1994 in the National Council of Provinces, and it ended when he resigned, due to ill health, from the National Assembly in December 2021. He served with distinction on various iterations of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services and led the Democratic Alliance’s lawfare programme, which focused on fighting in court government actions that undermined the Constitution.

Curated by former DA MPs Wilmot James and Marian Shinn with the support of Sheila Selfe and the Selfe family. We thank Sheila Selfe for making James Selfe’s memoirs available to us.