South
Africa’s official opposition launched their #Election2019 campaign and with
that what they’ve baptised #TeamMmusi [probably pun intended].
In the lead
up to the Western Cape governing party announcing it's Premier Candidate, one
of their local public representatives told me “I don’t think the
DA is ready for the election”.
I
responded: the DA is ready; the DA’s message is wrong.
The
announcement of #TeamMmusi (I’m enjoying this hashtag) is confirmation of this.
The DA is
either ignorant not to know or deliberately ignore two things:
(i) The majority of their core support constituency – in especially the Western Cape – are woman and,
(ii) the average voter really don’t care about the country being in a recession – because to them it won’t immediately change their life.
(i) The majority of their core support constituency – in especially the Western Cape – are woman and,
(ii) the average voter really don’t care about the country being in a recession – because to them it won’t immediately change their life.
What the DA
is ignoring is that many care about their municipality not delivering a service
but have huge municipal rates, long queues at home affairs, dysfunctional
public transport service, educators being threatened at schools, kids not safe
walking to school, no aftercare program for children, no sport development in
schools, arts and culture being the stepchild of the country, excuses being
made about high crime level… the list is literally endless!
All issues
the DA don’t address. One needs to admit that these issues are raised by the
party but then blame is shifted to the ANC, with no immediate solutions put on the table.
One could
debate the DA conceded defeat when Mmusi Maimane considered to consider whether
to consider to be the Premier Candidate to sit in Wale Street. By now we know
the ghost of Leeuwenhof won.
While one
could have expected eight of the 11 to be part of the team, six are in
positions one expected them to be in.
Perhaps let
me just state I am not questioning the competence of #TeamMmusi –
they all are competent. We however not told why they were selected to drive the
respective issue.
There are a few interesting observations from #TeamMmusi, two of those include:
+ Jacques Julius to drive Secure Borders. One
would have expected it to be Stevens Mokgalapa (international relations
spokesperson and president of the Africa Liberal Network). Other choices include Santosh Kalyan, Haniff Hoosen or even Ghaleb Cachalia.
+ John Steenhuisen to drive the crime issue, when the DA’s not only most vocal but knowledgeable person on crime over the past decade is Dianne Kohler Barnard – I’m sure she can name all 1138 police stations in her sleep. Steenhuisen the voice on crime is giving the critics ammunition to shoot this as bringing back the police nickname “boere”.
The irony,
sorry slogan of #TeamMmusi is #OneSouthAfrica.
What
boggles the mind though is apart from students, education is not a stand-alone
issue and public transport and infrastructure don’t feature.
This is
sad!
Not only is
the biggest portion of the national budget directed to education, we have had
serious incidents of school violence and other incidents.
Youth and
Students are made issues but that does not mean education as a sector will
be addressed. The DA will have to explain how it intends to address youth,
students and access to jobs but fail or rather skip the most crucial part –
foundation phase.
Like Youth
and Students, State Capture and Corruption are made two separate issues. In my
opinion both could have been combined as state capture is corruption and
students are youth but also covered under education.
#TeamMmusi
is what the DA leader and his strategist reckon Mzansi need.
What is a mystery though is where is #TeamSouthAfrica?
What is a mystery though is where is #TeamSouthAfrica?
