Mashaba vindicates and confirms my reasons for resigning from the DA  

21 October 2019

Herman Mashaba cited a number of reasons for his resignation from the DA and as the DA’s Mayor of the City of Johannesburg.

Almost exactly a year ago I resigned from the DA and as the Mayoral Committee Member for Transport and Urban Development in the City of Cape Town. 

I cited almost precisely the same reasons provided by Mashaba. 

The DA caucuses we operated in are dominated by old-guard DA members who are unable to grasp and implement the DA’s promises of redress.

These promises by the DA are empty and meaningless to those elected under the banner of redress. 

They are words their public reps can recite but have never believed or internalised.

Mashaba’s words:

“…some members of the DA caucus…have suggested that we prioritise the needs of suburban residents above providing dignity to those forgotten people who remain without basic services 25 years after the end of Apartheid” echo my experience in the Cape Town DA Caucus.

When I resigned from the DA I said that there were members of the DA who were clinging to the racial exclusivity of suburbs and neighbourhoods of the past.

I resigned on the back of the DA caucus choosing to block a mixed-income affordable housing project in Salt River.

I can confirm that the dominant voices and forces in the DA’s City of Cape Town caucus were profoundly opposed to redress and transformation. 

When the Deputy Leader of the Caucus, JP Smith, spoke out against the Salt River Affordable Housing project he said that “transformation is a swear word”.

Just as Mashaba says he “can no longer ignore the internal dynamics of the DA and the continued attempts to undermine my pro-poor agenda in the City of Johannesburg” so I too could no longer ignore relentless attempts to sabotage our pro-poor projects in the City of Cape Town.

Like most people who were watching the press briefing I was surprised by Maimane’s guest appearance.  This can only be read as an endorsement of Mashaba’s experience in the DA.

I find this profoundly opportunistic.  When I informed Maimane, in front of the full DA caucus in Cape Town, about those who were sitting there undermining our pro-poor work he chose to ignore it.

Now that Maimane has fallen out with that old guard – who were then working to remove Patricia De Lille as Mayor of Cape Town – he is suddenly concerned about those who are opposed to transformation.

When Patricia De Lille said there was a cabal of untransformed racists within the DA Maimane dismissed this as untrue. 

Today he claims he is being targeted by those within the party who are opposed to his transformation agenda and his vision of a non-racial South Africa.

Maimane’s hypocrisy and opportunism is astounding. 

Mashaba has confirmed the words, and experience I shared, when I resigned from the DA on 1 November 2018.  He has confirmed and vindicated my decision to walk away from the DA.

The DA is a lost cause and the DA is a hoax being perpetuated on the people of South Africa. 

Issued by Brett Herron, Good Secretary-General, 21 October 2019