Democratic Alliance: LEADERSHIP RACE: DA’s ‘Johnny Chief Whip’ frontrunner to become party’s interim leader

Over the past few weeks, the DA’s John Steenhuisen has been a ubiquitous presence in the media: publishing op-eds, authoring statements on matters of national import, and joining a march against gender-based violence.

The man known by party members in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal as “Johnny Chief Whip” — a reference to the role played by Steenhuisen in recent Parliaments — enjoys a number of advantages over his only rival, Gauteng MPL Makashule Gana. This follows the exit of not just Maimane, but also Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba and former DA federal chair Athol Trollip, who might otherwise have been likely contenders for the role.

Gana has staked his campaign on the opposite approach. In a letter sent to party members, Gana argued that the DA’s insistence on “a brand of politics that strains to emphasise that race does not matter” is fundamentally at odds with its simultaneous recognition that “in order to win elections, it has to have black leadership”.: “It is fair to assume that a large share of voting preferences will be along racial lines.

Only the 160 members of the party’s federal council will decide on the DA’s interim leadership on Sunday, making the race substantially different in character from that which will play out at the much larger national congress in April 2020.

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