Can the DA truly lead without transformation?

A generation is something around 25 years – the time it takes children to become adults and have their own children.

It’s almost hard to believe that the country’s erstwhile official opposition, the DA, has been around for a generation.

These days, of course, they’re part of the government of national unity (GNU) which has itself just celebrated its first birthday.

If a day in politics is a long time, then 25 years can seem like an eternity – and as one looks at the scorecard for the DA over that time, you would have to say it has left a considerable impression on South African politics.

Formed in 2000 out of the merger between the aboutto-expire New National Party and the then Democratic Party, the DA has a better track record than the ANC when it comes to service delivery in the places where it governs, like the Western Cape.

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No amount of complaining about how things work in “white areas” and not in the townships there can change that accomplishment.

It has also, despite criticism that it is a party dominated and controlled by whites, managed to attract many people of colour to its ranks.

However, while some have stayed, many of its most promising black leaders – from Mmusi Maimane to Herman Mashaba – have left the party in messy ways, complaining of overt and covert racism and paternalism in the ranks of the leadership.

The fact that, 31 years into democracy, the party’s leader and federal chair are both white is grist to the mill for its critics.

Yet, there can also be no denying that the DA’s involvement in the GNU has brought a new efficiency and positivity to the administration.

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The reality is, though, that it needs a change of complexion if it is ever going to become our ruling party.