DA cannot overturn ANC failures without rejecting ANC thinking
This opinion piece by Cilliers Brink MP is in response to the Sunday Times editorial of last week, Sunday 9 February, ‘Fortunately, different voices can be heard in the DA‘. It was rejected for publication in this week’s Sunday Times.
In your editorial of 9 February you accuse the Democratic Alliance (DA) of not being interested in resolving SA’s problems. You reject the proposed review of DA values and principles released by our head of policy, Gwen Ngwenya, without referring to a single sentence in the document. You even blame the policy debate inside the DA for the decision of the EFF to bring ANC mayors back to power in the metros.
It seems that the Sunday Times has shut its mind to anything beyond the horizons of what the ANC has to offer.
You want the DA to break the dominance of the “arrogant ANC”, and stop the former liberation movement from destroying state-owned entities, and running municipalities into the ground. But you insist that the DA dare not challenge the ANC’s worldview, or the policy choices that have sprung from it. Sorry, but you cannot have it both ways.
And the DA cannot in good conscience promise to succeed in government where the ANC has failed without also undertaking a root-and-branch change of values and policy.