Nine months ago, John Steenhuisen, who leads South Africa’s second-largest political party, the Democratic Alliance, stood before news cameras and signed an agreement not to work with his long-ruling party, the African National Congress. .
“God help me,” Steenhuisen said, raising his right hand and laughing.
But when the African National Congress failed to secure a governing majority in last week’s elections and on Thursday called on its political opponents to join forces in a national unity government, Steenhuisen moved to the front of the group of political leaders seeking to work with the party he had resigned from.
He and the Democratic Alliance are pressing ahead with the most important political negotiations in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994 and have drawn up a document setting out their basic principles for joining a government with the African National Congress (ANC).
The fall of the ruling party – winning just 40 percent of the vote, ending three decades of dominance – has left Steenhuisen, 48, on the brink of his political dreams. As leader of the second-place party, with nearly 22 percent of the vote, Steenhuisen appears likely to get a leadership role in the next government, political analysts say.
But even as he rises, Steenhuisen must navigate the complicated third rail of South African society: race.
Steenhuisen is white and his party’s national leadership is predominantly white. In a country that is 80 percent black, many still see him and his center-right party, favored by many in big business and the private sector, as defenders of white interests. Political analysts attribute this partly to the unresolved trauma of apartheid, but also to the Democratic Alliance’s sometimes clumsy and clumsy handling of racial issues.
“There are perceptions,” Steenhuisen said in an interview last year. “One of them is, ‘Oh, the DA is going to bring back apartheid.’ “I think there is still a trust deficit around the issue of race.”
Steenhuisen has blazed a clear path to power, with charm and quick wit, but also with an optimism that some say teeters on arrogance. He started out as an ambitious 22-year-old council member in the country’s third-largest city and rose to the top job in the Democratic Alliance, which emerged from an anti-apartheid party led by white South Africans.
The Democratic Alliance, as it is known today, was formed in 2000 with the merger of several parties. At the time it was already the country’s second-largest party, partly because it attracted white voters after the dissolution of the National Party, which led the apartheid government.
Over the years, the Democratic Alliance was able to court the country’s racial minorities: white, Indian or people of color, a multiracial classification. The party also grew its base among black voters, particularly those who believed that the ANC’s efforts to undo racial disparities failed to empower black South Africans.
Today, the Democratic Alliance’s biggest appeal is less corruption and better financial management in the cities and in the only province, the Western Cape, where it governs.
Some within the ANC vehemently oppose bringing the Democratic Alliance into a governing coalition, saying the party has opposed efforts to undo racial disparities that still persist due to apartheid, especially in wealth, land ownership and employment. Opponents also accuse the Democratic Alliance of selling racism.
Some ANC members even started a petition to stop a coalition with Steenhuisen’s party, questioning his opposition to laws supporting affirmative action, universal healthcare and land redistribution. They also posted an image of a seven-year-old tweet from one of the Democratic Alliance’s top leaders, Helen Zille, attempting to put a positive spin on colonialism.
“For those who claim that the legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think about our independent judiciary, transportation infrastructure, running water, etc.,” Ms. Zille wrote.
Steenhuisen took control of the Democratic Alliance five years ago, replacing its first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, with whom he had worked as the opposition’s chief whip in Parliament. Maimane’s resignation after the Democratic Alliance’s disappointing 2019 election result, as well as the departures of several other prominent black members before and after him, have fueled the narrative of a party hostile towards blacks.
In a revealing memoir published this year, Maimane accused Steenhuisen of thwarting his efforts to transform the party into one that attracted more black voters.
A spokeswoman for Steenhuisen declined to comment and said he was not available for an interview.
Steenhuisen said in last year’s interview that he believed “race plays a role” in South African society. But he disagreed with the ANC over how to address racial disparities.
He said taking a colorblind approach to tackling poverty would ultimately uplift black South Africans. The ruling party’s approach to racial reparations has primarily helped politically connected black elites, she said.
Steenhuisen’s party has proposed abandoning affirmative action policies, promoting greater private sector participation in state services such as electricity, increasing some social subsidies and reducing taxes on certain food products.
But notably, the principles that the Democratic Alliance laid out for its negotiations with the ANC did not include ending racial preference programs.
Critics say the Democratic Alliance plays on race to gain support, although sometimes as dog whistles.
For a protest last year against an ANC-backed law requiring some employers to meet racial quotas in hiring, the Democratic Alliance bused black township residents to march through central Cape Town.
“Black people are getting jobs, and our people of color aren’t getting any,” said Reneé Ferris, who attended the rally and said she was looking for work as a cleaner.
Steenhuisen, who grew up in the coastal city of Durban, has said financial problems prevented him from finishing university.
He joined his hometown council in 1999 and quickly volunteered for site visits to inspect the town’s infrastructure or hand out leaflets at weekend rugby matches, said Gillian Noyce, who worked alongside him. .
At age 30, Steenhuisen became the head of the Democratic Alliance group on the City Council, leading more experienced legislators. Three years later, he led the party in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, and in just two more years he was elected to the national Parliament.
He cultivated relationships with both colleagues and constituents, and several of his critics and defenders said he has a distinctive ability to read a room. She hosted Christmas parties at her house and hosted after-work drinks every week, Noyce recalled.
But in 2010, it became public that Steenhuisen had been cheating on his wife of 10 years with a party spokesperson, who was married to another party member. Steenhuisen resigned as party leader in KwaZulu Natal province. He is now married to the woman he had the affair with. In a country accustomed to political scandals, the episode did not stop Steenhuisen’s rise.
He has fought tough battles within the party, earning a reputation as someone who does not tolerate dissent, former members said.
Three days after last week’s election, Steenhuisen was in a Zoom meeting with the leaders of several smaller parties that also signed a pledge last year not to work with the ANC. Some of them chastised the Democratic Alliance over reports that it would not honor its commitment to the pact, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.
It seemed to Steenhuisen’s critics that, faced with the smell of power, he and his party were ready to abandon the principles he had defended.
“No one will trust them again in the future,” the leader of a small party said of the Democratic Alliance.
“With all due respect, you speak without authority about the district attorney and what he is going to do or not do,” Steenhuisen responded. “You need to understand it very, very clearly.”