Travelling down the DA’s Country Road

Early last year I complained that the DA’s image was too rich, too old, too white. I wrote, “Clearly brand DA is in need of a major overhaul, a major injection of cool. Its fusty look is rather reminiscent of what Woolworths was like 10 or 15 years ago when people under 30 refused to [...]

ANC will savage any opposition to its bid for perpetual rule

Leaked plans by the ANC to destabilise and distract from opposition leader Helen Zille from fulfilling her duties as premier of the Western Cape shows the contempt that our ruling party has for democracy.
After several years of the ANC’s chaotic mismanagement and paltry delivery, the Western Cape’s voters decisively elected the DA to run the [...]

Sleeping around goes viral

Profundities expressed by the ANC’s Youth League spokesman have become a popular hit online, with the recording of  his conversation with talk show host Redi Direko having already over 12000 hits.
Watch it here.

“Two-thirds gevaar” was reasoned, not racist

In a recent ANC Today, President Kgalema Motlanthe rehashes an article he wrote in the run up to the 1999 elections in which he criticised the then DP’s calls to prevent a two-thirds majority as “a fear of democracy”. In that decade-old piece he said:
Lacking a coherent or realisable vision for a better South Africa, [...]

Zille is Western Cape premier candidate

Helen Zille, the leader of the DA and the current mayor of Cape Town, announced this morning that she will be her party’s Western Cape premier candidate in the upcoming elections. Her governance track record in Cape Town is strong and doubtless she will make a fantastic premier, but the burning question is who will [...]

Talking points at the National Convention

The first day of Lekota’s National Convention has passed and, by all accounts, been a success, with almost 5000 delegates in attendance. On the convention’s website, there is a useful summary of what the speakers said (a list that includes Mosiuoa Lekota, former Cosatu stalwart Willie Madisha and Unisa vice-chancellor Barney Pityana) .
In her weekly [...]

Zille is World Mayor

On Tuesday it was announced that Helen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance and mayor of Cape Town, has been awarded this year’s World Mayor prize by an urban affairs think tank, City Mayors.
This is a fantastic acknowledgement of the wonderful work Zille is doing as mayor of Cape Town.
City Mayors have the following to [...]

Hitting the right note with the electorate

The official opposition has called for the upcoming general elections to be scrapped and for them to be replaced with Politics Idols – a singing competition with one singer participating from each political party. This comes after Helen Zille’s stirring performance (accompanied with spirited boogieing) of Never give up, the DA’s new anticrime song, outside [...]

Zille’s Idols bid: party politics takes its battle to the stage

Eish. So, our own veritable Jay-Z isn’t the only singing, dancing SA politician around these days. Helen Zille gave a stirring rendition of the DA’s new anti-crime theme song “Never give up” at a candlelit vigil outside a drug dealer’s house in Belhar according to this post on the DA’s Eye On Crime blog.
Click here [...]

A party by any other name …

A tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the DA was in desperate need of a branding overhaul was met with a broad spectrum of responses — from “DA who?” to indignant rebuttals from DA activists.
The reality of the situation is that that the official opposition is severely stigmatised. Negative emotions towards the party — from mistrust to hatred [...]