Does Geordin Hill-Lewis regret asking President Cyril Ramaphosa to demote John Steenhuisen from the agriculture ministry? The negative impact on the DA seems far out of proportion to whatever benefits Hill-Lewis had in mind.
Still very much in his honeymoon period as the new DA leader, Hill-Lewis does not come out of this at all well. And his party is suddenly turning on itself when it should be visibly unified and laser-focused on the November local government elections.
Going into the party’s leadership conference in April, Hill-Lewis appeared to be every inch the gentleman. He had admitted that he was ambitious, but said he would stand for leader only if Steenhuisen, as the incumbent, exited the race. Steenhuisen, who had been under mounting pressure as leader, duly withdrew, and the deal between the two men was that he would continue as agriculture minister in the GNU.
Steenhuisen was clearly embittered after Hill-Lewis in effect fired him. “I’m deeply disappointed,” he said. “But I think my disappointment lies more at a personal level than at a professional level. The personal issue is that a word was given, and a word was broken.”
At its crudest, Hill-Lewis is thus exposed, within and outside the DA, as someone who cannot be trusted. If the rejoinder is that politics can be a dirty game, then he should not have made a personal promise that might prove impossible to keep. Either way, he comes across as naive and lacking judgement.
Did he not consider that Steenhuisen, a veteran political streetfighter, might retaliate with some low blows? There has been considerable collateral damage, with DA factions breaking the surface, along with distracting allegations that former leader Tony Leon misused his stature and party contacts to advance his consultancy business. With less than four months to go to the elections, the DA’s opponents cannot believe their luck.
In February the FM speculated that it might just suit the DA to keep Steenhuisen on as a minister, with Hill-Lewis serving another term as Cape Town mayor. But now it may be to Hill-Lewis’s severe disadvantage not to be in parliament or in the GNU cabinet.
He cannot have a daily feel for the tensions of national coalition politics, and it must be asked how he can assess the performance of DA ministers and deputies if he is outside the GNU. And in judging Steenhuisen’s performance at agriculture, did Hill-Lewis consider the realities of inheriting a dysfunctional department staffed for decades by ANC placemen?
Last week, at an invitation-only event in Sandton crammed with DA leaders and loyalists, Hill-Lewis delivered a policy address that was clearly intended to define and set the tone for his leadership. He was fluent, cerebral, clever, engaging, energetic — but it was a speech that a capable secretary could have read on his behalf. There was nothing personal, no vulnerability, nothing to spark emotional connection with the audience. And, to be brutal, it was little advance on Steenhuisen.
Unless Hill-Lewis goes to parliament soon, he risks being seen as merely a regional politician, without any resonance in, say, Soweto and KwaZulu-Natal. And if he continues as Cape Town mayor, how effective can he be in fixing the damage he has caused in the DA, or in mounting an electoral campaign nationally for the party going into November?
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