A Series of Flip-Flops
In an article published on Independent Online yesterday, Wilmot James makes a number of remarks that cannot go unchallenged.
James says – without any substantiation – that his opponent is offering “another version of the ANC”. In contrast, James claims that he offers “a real alternative to the ANC.”
So let’s unpack James’ own record when it comes to offering an alternative to the ANC.
In 2010, one year into his first term as a DA MP, James told an interviewer that he would vote for the ANC if Trevor Manuel were its President: “If it wasn’t for the ANC’s insistence to have an African person as a leader, he would be president. I would vote for him. He would be great,” James said (see here – PDF). Indeed, James worked closely with the ANC throughout the 1990s and would later describe himself in an interview as an ANC sympathiser during those years.
James has an interesting history of political involvement. He was peripherally involved in the Black Consciousness Movement for a couple of years in the 1970s, the UDF in the 1980s and an ANC sympathiser in the 1990s. He was never a member of the Democratic Party, or any of its predecessor parties, and only joined the DA in August 2008 – a few months before he became a Member of Parliament. Perhaps this is why James’ claim to be a “liberal stalwart” ring rather hollow.
In this campaign, James has made much of the need for us to “differentiate ourselves from the ANC.” So it is unclear why, as the DA’s Federal Chairperson and Policy Convenor, James supported the Employment Equity Amendment Bill in 2013. This resulted in an embarrassing U-turn for the then parliamentary leadership, described at the time by Helen Zille as a “plane crash” that should have been avoided. The DA’s support for the Bill was anathema to liberals because it sought to entrench racial classification and quotas – the central planks of the ANC’s approach to transformation.
But then James’s position on race-based redress has always been a bit shaky. In fact, his flip-flop on the issue has been nothing short of spectacular.
On 8 March 2011, James said in a statement: “Previous disadvantage, not race, should guide redress.” On 22 June 2013, James said in a lecture that racial classification was incompatible with liberalism. “I announced in Parliament this week that we would simply use disadvantage as the criteria,” he said.
It was in an interview with Eusebius McKaiser in September 2013 that James showed the depth of his muddled thinking on the matter. In his answer to a question on whether the DA would remove the language of race from BEE, James said: “The important thing to recognise is that we're dealing with past disadvantage [which] corresponded five to 10 years ago perfectly with race. But now it doesn't so you have to modernise and you have to stop the racial bean counting…” McKaiser replied: “So there you have it, the DA is not into BEE, it is into Diversity Economic empowerment. Is that a correct summary Dr James?” James confirmed: “It sounds a bit clumsy but that summarises our position, yeah.”
Something changed in late 2013 at around the same time that James was pushing for the DA to support the Employment Equity Amendment Bill in Parliament. On 15 November 2013, James authored a memorandum on redress in which he argued that “disadvantage still significantly overlaps with race.” This led him to conclude: “we support a balanced, qualitative process to promote diversity which may include racial preference...”
In other words, James went from railing against racial classification to embracing it in a few short months. That’s quite an about-turn.
This kind of policy flip-floppery is again evident in James’ recent criticism of what he refers to as the DA’s “flirting” with the National Development Plan (NDP). Besides the dubious strategy of attacking the very party he is campaigning to lead, his comments would have struck many as rather curious. After all, it was Wilmot James who – as the party’s policy convenor –led the DA’s charge in its endorsement of the National Development Plan (NDP).
When he was Shadow Minister of Basic Education, James exhorted the Minister to “think deeply about the NDP's recommendations before dismissing them for political reasons.” In a speech in Parliament on 15 February 2012, James said that the NDP was the solution to South Africa’s slow rate of economic growth. “Speaker, why is it that other economies can grow at 6%, 7%, 8% or 9% and we can only stutter along at under 3%? The reasons are not mysterious. Read the National Development Plan,” he said.
Speaking in London on 28 June 2012, James bemoaned the government’s “not-so-subtle side-lining” of the NDP, adding that the NDP was “an excellent document with much to recommend it.” On 22 August 2013, James released a press statement in which he called on the Trade and Industry Minister to “systematically start implementing the recommendations made in the National Development Plan.”
It is unclear why James has suddenly changed his position on the NDP. Because, if anybody in the DA is guilty of “flirting” with the NDP, it is James himself.
The delegates at the upcoming Congress deserve to have the full facts at their disposal when they vote. And there is nothing wrong with running a robust political campaign, even in internal party elections. But candidates need to understand that, if they want to attack others, their own record must stand up to scrutiny too.
Geordin Hill-Lewis is a DA MP and Manager of the Maimane for Leader Campaign.
