BANTU MNIKI | Hill-Lewis playing risky game with cabinet reshuffle

The DA’s newly elected leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis, has just made a bold political move.

It is not clear yet whether his objective is to deal with John Steenhuisen or to position the DA for the upcoming local elections.

Apparently, the move has spooked a significant portion of the DA leadership.

The move was not discussed at the DA federal level, as is usually the case for such a bold move.

There are circulating reports that Steenhuisen, the former DA leader who declined to contest for the same position, feels betrayed.

Seemingly the general understanding was that Steenhuisen would retain his position within the GNU cabinet, something that will not happen should Hill-Lewis’ recommendations go through.

Sure enough, Steenhuisen’s handling of the foot-and-mouth disease did him, the DA and the country significant damage.

His poor selection of chief of staff, the controversial Roman Cabanac, exposed significant chips in his armour.

Add to this Steenhuisen’s removal of Dion George as forestry, fisheries and environment minister.

This sparked a counter claim by George that Steenhuisen had misused the party credit card.

Though the DA investigations later cleared Steenhuisen, these events caused damage to his political standing.

The South African electorate generally saw a different side of the DA from these events.

It was the first time the DA really held national government positions.

These events somehow indicated how the dynamics of national political office presented opportunities for political misconduct.

The veneer of cleanliness which the DA is supposedly proud of, at least in comparison to the ANC, was somewhat tarnished.

Having said all of this, Hill-Lewis’s handling of this reshuffle is still risky, bordering on recklessness.

Not only does he seem to have made the decision alone, without the DA federal council, he needs President Cyril Ramaphosa to approve the reshuffling.

If Ramaphosa does not approve of this reshuffling, it leaves Hill-Lewis rather exposed, and without a clear mandate from the DA federal council.

This exposes him internally, right at the centre of where he should get a significant portion of his support.

By the look of things, Hill-Lewis seems to be stamping his authority as head of the DA.

He is doing this, not by elevating consensus and unity within the DA, but by stepping out almost entirely on his own, save for his supporters of course.

While performance is important, and shaping organisations for it, is the next thing to consider, when it is embarked on with recklessness it can be counterproductive.

Not only did Hill-Lewis bypass the federal council, but he brought in people who are not part of the DA parliamentary caucus.

This has caused significant concern within the DA.

Maybe Hill-Lewis knows something the rest of us do not know.

But considering his earlier choice not to join the national government, this puts the DA in a precarious position.

This is the same position the ANC made efforts to avoid by making sure that the leader of the party is also the leader of government.

The objective was to avoid creating two centres of power, where the leader of the party in parliament is not the leader in government.

It is not clear how Hill-Lewis hopes to navigate the aura he is fast building around himself as the control master behind the scenes.

His insistence on staying outside the national government and attempting to pull off such a big political stunt does not paint him in any other way.

The DA has erred big time before. At the time it pushed Mmusi Maimane out and saw an exodus of many other leaders of African descent, it made one of its biggest mistakes, electorally at least.

It failed to capture a moment which would have catapulted the DA to national office in the backdrop of a weakening ANC.

It seems then that the DA was trying to appease its Afrikaner constituency at the expense of electoral performance.

Perhaps this was also an indication that the DA was not ready to rise to the occasion and lead SA.

The DA might be making the same mistake again.

There is suspicion that Geordin Hill-Lewis may be trying to appease the Afrikaner farming constituency, which was spooked by Steenhuisen’s handling of the foot-and-mouth disease.

As such, Hill-Lewis has almost certainly chosen to forgo electoral success for the support of the Afrikaner constituency.

Generally, nothing is wrong with this, because this is a legitimate South African constituency.

But this choice might be an indication that the DA is not yet ready to lead our society.