Can DA’s new broom fix it?

The Steenhuisen era in DA politics is not quite over, but it is spluttering to a close.

Just a few months ago, John Steenhuisen was the leader of the DA and headed a key department in the government of national unity (GNU).

Steenhuisen’s demotion

In short order, he was forced to relinquish the leadership and has now been relegated by his successor, Geordin Hill-Lewis, to a deputy minister post.

Last week’s demotion from minister of agriculture to deputy minister at the department of Trade, Industry, and Competition will be doubly galling.

There is the additional humiliation that the man replacing him and the woman he replaces are relatively inexperienced DA colleagues.

‘Steenhuisen had failed in the job’

Hill-Lewis’ ministerial dumping of the man he once described as a “dear friend” was both necessary and inevitable.

Necessary, because Steenhuisen had failed in the job. Inevitable, because Hill-Lewis had to put his personal stamp on a parliamentary caucus still close to Steenhuisen and of which he is not a part.

In November, I wrote that foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) would be the test of whether Steenhuisen was capable of running a technically demanding portfolio. By March, the answer was obvious.

Steenhuisen had, I wrote, “contrived to turn a critically important disease-control programme into a rolling, roiling legal, bureaucratic and political fiasco”.

It was time

It was time for him to go. Hill-Lewis has negotiated exactly this politically fraught situation. As a deputy minister, Steenhuisen can do little harm.

Willem Aucamp, meanwhile, has been charged with picking up the pieces at agriculture.

His “immediate mandate”, Hill-Lewis said, is to “resolve ongoing legal proceedings relating to FMD”, work with the entire sector, restore confidence and bring the crisis under control.

Aucamp’s proposed appointment has been cautiously welcomed by farming organisations. He is an Afrikaner, a farmer and has served on parliament’s agriculture portfolio committee.

Will Aucamp accept reality?

But there are risks. The biggest is that he will be briefed by the same bureaucratic apparatus that gave Steenhuisen ruinous advice: first, a containment strategy that was too late and inadequate; and second, building a vaccination strategy around the ANC state’s need to control every lever of power.

The test will be whether Aucamp will do what Steenhuisen would not: accept reality.

As FMD Response SA, Saai and other farming bodies have argued, the present FMD approach is self-defeating.

What is needed are two tightly synchronised six-to-eight-week national vaccination surges, so livestock develop broadly simultaneous immunity and transmission between herds can be choked off.

If Aucamp understands this and imposes it on his department, Hill-Lewis’ move should pay off.

Changes made by DA leader

These were not the only Hill-Lewis changes.

David Maynier is to move from the Western Cape provincial education portfolio to become the new forestry, fisheries and environment minister; Yusuf Cassim from the Eastern Cape provincial legislature into the deputy ministerial role at higher education and training; and Jack Bloom from the Gauteng legislature into the deputy ministerial seat at water and sanitation.

This month, the GNU turns two years old. With the exception of Leon Schreiber’s triumphs at home affairs, it has not been a roaring success for the DA.

To change that, Hill-Lewis will have to tackle the other great failure of the Steenhuisen era: the inability to stand up to the ANC and extract meaningful compromises, especially on race-based policies and misguided foreign policies.