ANTHONY BUTLER: Whitfield debacle boosts DA activists who want leadership change

First published in Business Day and BusinessLive

04 July 2025

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s calculated and clinical firing of DA-affiliated deputy trade minister Andrew Whitfield brought only a mild financial market reaction. 

No professional observer of coalition governments worldwide is surprised when tensions escalate as elections draw closer. Coalition partners prioritise their own party’s identity and voter base, adopting distinct or populist positions to differentiate themselves. They distance themselves from unpopular policies.

Moreover, pre-election periods are times of intensified disagreement over budgets, appointments and key reforms. Coalition manoeuvres are usually calculated moves that reflect the shift from co-operation to competition as parties prepare to face voters alone. 

However, key DA leaders responded to Whitfield’s sacking with heart palpitations and pointless bluster. Federal leader John Steenhuisen, in particular, launched an ill-considered rhetorical fusillade and upped the stakes with a 48-hour ultimatum. This all ended with the damp squib of withdrawal from a national dialogue that has not even started. 

Federal council chair Helen Zille made matters worse by denying that Whitfield’s private, party-sponsored mission required permission. Why then did Whitfield write to ask for permission, or apologise after the event for going without Ramaphosa’s agreement? After all, Whitfield was reportedly part of a DA delegation that engaged with senior US officials regarding SA-US relations.  

The Whitfield debacle will strengthen the hand of DA activists who believe the topmost leadership of the party needs to change at the DA’s elective federal congress, due to be held in April 2026. 

Steenhuisen was an excellent parliamentary leader and he has been a decent minister, but recent events have highlighted his limitations. Zille is enormously accomplished, but she is a polarising figure who antagonises not only her own activists but also potential coalition partners.

The pivotal position she holds as federal council chair surely requires a lower key figure in the mould of long-term former incumbent James Selfe. Many DA activists hope Zille will depart to contest the Johannesburg mayoral seat, where her rebarbative qualities could be more fruitfully employed. 

DA delegates might well face a choice between two candidates for the federal leadership in April: communication minister Solly Malatsi and Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.  

Malatsi has been in the DA for 20 years, and in parliament for a decade. His messaging offers a welcome contrast to wordy and rambling leaders such as Steenhuisen, former federal leader Mmusi Maimane, or basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube. For his part, Hill-Lewis has accomplished much — and been a brilliant communicator — as mayor. 

Coalition politics is a long game. In the natural cycle of a coalition government it is likely that the existing coalition will dissolve under pressure as the demands of maintaining support, managing defections and preparing for future elections escalate. Disputes between parties are inevitable in a coalition. As time passes and the next election approaches, the incentive to emphasise difference over cohesion will only grow.  

We may even find the unity government dissolving. Confidence-and-supply agreements, in which smaller parties support the government on key votes and keep the president in office, are not impossible. A minority ANC government, backed by legislative agreements or informal pacts, in which parties work together to pass specific pieces of legislation, is also quite conceivable. 

In such circumstances party leaders need cool heads. Moreover, parties such as the DA have strong reason to avoid the alienation of potential future partners, and to strive to retain the trust of their activists and voters. All of this would be easier without the baggage — and the temperamental shortcomings — Steenhuisen and Zille bring to coalition politics. 

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.