We are not surprised to learn that the Democratic Alliance (DA) has launched a radio advert attacking ActionSA. 

The ad, which featured on 702, portray a voter expressing their doubt over voting for Herman Mashaba because of the EFF’s involvement in the coalition in Johannesburg, land invasions and polling which places ActionSA at 1%. 

What this ad actually does is portray the depths of the DA’s decline. It used to be a party that was challenging the ANC, even removing them from municipalities. Now it is a party that seeks to minimise its decline by opposing other parties who are challenging the ANC. 

The truth is that polling is placing ActionSA ahead of the DA and ANC in Johannesburg. When our polling emerges for Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, we suspect it will say the same thing. In campaigns, political parties do not invest millions attacking political parties who are tracking at 1%. 

The coalition arrangement in 2016 was the product of a DA Federal Executive decision of which I was not a member. John Steenhuisen, Helen Zille, and the rest of the current DA leadership were in that meeting which created the coalition arrangement which I had to make work. 

The DA’s decline has not halted in 2019 and its continued self-mutilation continues on a regular basis. The reality is that it is a party in decline desperately trying to avoid the double-edged sword of the “buck now stopping with the leader.” 

South Africans need a political party that is not in opposition for the sake of being in opposition. It needs a political party that can challenge and remove the ANC and one that can unite South Africans and not try to divide them along racial lines for political gain. 

It is for these reasons that we are unmoved by the DA’s latest ploy to divert South Africans from their impending collapse as a once significant party.

 

Issued by ActionSA President Herman Mashaba