Mmusi Maimane means business: Why South Africa’s Democratic Alliance opposition leader wants to cut the Rainbow Nation’s red tape | City A.M.
In his first state of the nation address in February, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa was adamant when he pledged that “a new dawn” was upon the country.
There was reason to be hopeful; the former deputy president in the African National Congress (ANC)-led government had run on an anti-corruption platform and smoothly taken the reins from the scandal-ridden Jacob Zuma, who resigned when it became clear he faced certain defeat in a vote of no confidence.
Optimism among voters surged after Ramaphosa came to power, but many were sceptical about the reality of a “new dawn” after 24 years of ANC government – and with many of the same politicians staying in prominent roles.
In the words of South Africa’s official opposition leader, Mmusi Maimane, Ramaphosa himself is “good for South Africa”. But the challenges facing him, including Zuma still being the “looming” figure in the ANC, will likely prove to be too big to overcome, Maimane believes.
“Cyril Ramaphosa’s got a complicated job,” the Democratic Alliance (DA) leader says. “He has to fix his own party, and I don’t think he can. So all he can do at the moment is tinker with some things. He’s not going to achieve any significant reform because his party’s fragmented and it’s broken.”
From ANC to DA
However, Maimane has not always been so critical of the ANC. He supported the party while growing up in the Soweto township near Johannesburg to a Xhosa mother and Tswana father, and says it was around 10 years into ANC rule when he realised that the system “wasn’t delivering”.
At that time, Maimane was a business consultant. By 2010, he had been selected as the DA’s candidate to run for mayor of Johannesburg, the country’s economic centre. Although he was unsuccessful in his mayoral bid, he became the party’s national spokesman in 2011, then ran unsuccessfully to be Gauteng premier in the 2014 election.
Maimane became the official leader of the opposition that same year and was voted DA party leader in a landslide victory in May 2015, succeeding Helen Zille.
At 38 years old, he is the party’s youngest and first black South African leader. Outside of the DA he is also an elder and former preacher at the conservative Liberty Church.
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When City A.M. speaks to him, he is on a quick trip to London, during which he attended an event in Mayfair with businessmen and South African expats hosted by Andrew Wessels, chief executive of business profile management firm The Marque.
Maimane is already on the campaign trail for the as-yet-unscheduled 2019 general election. The DA, a broadly centrist party, already runs 33 municipalities including the city of Cape Town and, in coalitions, Johannesburg and Tshwane (the administrative capital Pretoria), as well as controlling one of South Africa’s nine provinces, the Western Cape.
The DA is in charge of South Africa’s second most populous city, Cape Town
South African elections work on two levels: electing representatives to the 400-seat National Assembly and voting for new provincial legislatures. The DA holds just over 22 per cent of the National Assembly with 89 seats, compared with the ANC’s 62 per cent and 249 seats.
Under Maimane, the DA has a long game to play. Although he insists the party has to extend its reach, he is not thinking purely in percentage terms. Instead, the aim of next year’s poll is to gain control of strategic areas.
“We’re targeting three major provinces. That’s our goal actually, so the national percentage is secondary to that. We want to get Gauteng, which is South Africa’s economic hub, the Northern Cape and the Western Cape. We get those; we control the economy of South Africa. That’s the plan.”
‘Move out the way’
Since coming to power, Ramaphosa has won praise for his efforts to cut through red tape and stimulate investment in South Africa, but the ANC is still pursuing state-led development. Maimane, in contrast, insists the role of government is to set up the environment and conditions for growth and then “move out the way”. For Maimane, when it comes to regulation around anything, “less is better”.
Rooting out endemic corruption, cutting red tape, encouraging small businesses through a venture capital fund and privatisation are all high on Maimane’s business agenda.
“We think we should sell off some key state assets to begin to deconcentrate and demonopolise big entities,” he says. “Eskom, which is the power generator. South African Airways – sell it off. We don’t need an airline, can’t afford it. Sell off those things.”
Maimane adds: “Our job is not to be running a mine, our job is not to be running a bank, our job is simply to set up the infrastructure and move out the way. So questions around even things like land and land tenure, and security of property rights are sideline debates. We need to be focused on saying how we best create work for people in rural and urban communities.”
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There has to be more diversification in many industries, he adds, with sectors such as banking and mining choked up by a few big players making it difficult to establish new entrants.
He advocates a strategy of “putting power lower down”, moving away from national-level policies towards city-led development.
“If you want to fight for the guy who’s left out, cities are key. Cities also have the balance sheet in South Africa to build effective infrastructure.”
This strategy would have knock-on effects outside of cities too. “If cities grow at about five per cent, South Africa’s GDP will grow, which will be beneficial for rural citizens,” he explains.
More than anything else, creating jobs is the priority. “It is the surest way of addressing inequality,” he says.
Preparing voters
While the DA does not expect to win 2019’s election in pure percentage terms, the party has come far from its former image of being the political home of wealthy white South Africans.
Maimane’s DA is a party in transition mode from outspoken opposition to an organisation that is seriously pursuing national government.
“We’re positioning ourselves as a party preparing for government, whereas previously I think people thought ‘hang on, this is an effective opposition’. Now for the first time they think ‘hang on, we could have a DA-led government’, so we have to prepare voters for that.
“[T]he best gift we could give to South Africa is a break away from these repetitive cycles of nationalism, whether that’s colonialism, Afrikaner nationalism, African nationalism. [If] we can break that it would be the best legacy we could leave South Africa.”