DA leader John Steenhuisen has blamed the media for the criticism he and the party have been getting ahead of the local government elections, including accusations of promoting racism.
On Wednesday, Steenhuisen led the party’s election campaign rally in Mamelodi, Tshwane, where the party is pushing to return with a clear majority after the November 1 polls.
Steenhuisen has been on the receiving end of criticism and accusations of implicitly supporting racism ahead of the elections, which has the potential of undermining the party’s support.
Among controversies that have recently followed Steenhuisen were his continued defence of the DA’s Phoenix election posters, which were deemed racially divisive and what has been seen as his implied endorsement of Gareth Cliff’s dismissal of One SA Movement spokesperson Mudzuli Rakhivhane’s experiences of racism as unimportant during an interview recently.
Steenhuisen indicated that the negative attention and criticism he had been receiving had less to do with him as an individual but were due to his position in the party and he believed that this was unlikely to lead to loss of support.
“The tallest trees always catch the wind. The media have never liked the leader of the DA. They always like to pick winners but they are not the voters,” he said.
Steenhuisen said it is the voters that make the elections. “I have seen many media predictions over many elections in the 24 years that I have been in elections where the media have had to eat humble pie after the elections,” he said.
Steenhuisen, however, pointed out that he would not take responsibility alone should the party not do well at the polls.
“We will all take responsibility as leaders. Provincial leaders, the federal leader and campaign managers will take responsibility. We will all step up and take responsibility for things that go wrong, and we will do what we can to right them,” Steenhuisen said.
DA provincial leader Solly Msimanga said while he understood that the DA had been projected as racist due to some of the issues, these would not overshadow the party’s good track record in governance.
“These issues have not had a great impact on our campaign so far. We are trying to say to the people we speak to that they must look at the track record of what we have been able to deliver and let it count more than what they are told we are standing for,” Msimanga said.
Steenhuisen also backtracked on his willingness to work with the ANC as a coalition partner after the elections as he said this was a lie as the DA wanted to push the ANC out of power.
He said other political parties did not matter ahead of the elections, as it was either the DA or the ANC that would eventually take over the reins and govern.
“On the second of November, you are going to wake up with a DA government or an ANC government. There are only two parties of government in SA and that is the DA and the ANC,” he said.
Steenhuisen also bashed smaller parties and called on residents not to vote for them.
The DA and its leader have been hard at work delegitimising smaller parties, including ActionSA, as they said voting them equalled “dividing the vote”.
“We cannot play with fire. Don’t mess around with these small parties. I promise you, they are like one-night stands. They will never return your call after the election. You will never see them,” he said.
