Joe Seremane Announces DA Leadership Candidacy 3
Joe Seremane has announced his candidacy for leadership of the DA. Now it’s pretty clear that the DA needs black leadership and I have no doubt that Joe Seremane would be a capable leader but he is by no means the solution to their leadership problem in fact I would say that the DA will be in no better or worse shape if Seremane or Athol Trollip are elected. If Seremance is elected leader of the DA they will still have a a significant dearth of black leadership and it is going to take a lot of work, and a lot of time, to recruit and nurture the leadership they need.
It’s clear that Helen Zille must be the next DA leader. She’s the only person that’ll be able to chart a course through what will be very difficult waters over the next five years. What will be really interesting is to see how she decides to manage her inevitable role as DA leader. She’s made it clear that she won’t leave the mayoralty of Cape Town, which will require a DA caucus leader to be elected in parliament. This would be a very interesting proposition, as s/he (Seremane, perhaps?) would be Leader of the Opposition, but not the leader of his own party. It might be the perfect compromise – you’d have a woman – and the best candidate – leading the Official Opposition and an inspirational black man as the Leader of the Opposition.
That would be quite an interesting development. It would be similar to the setup in American politics where the head of the DNC is neither a member of the house or senate.
That being said can you imagine the kinds of comments Seremane would get in parliament if this happened? Every time he voted on legislation the ANC backbenchers will be loudly asking whether he got Helen’s permission to do so.
Yeah – it would have it’s pros and cons…. and not just if he’s got Helen’s permission! He’ll also be called a “token black” if he loses the leadership race and then gets elected DA leader in parliament…