[Tony Leon is moving out because HE IS WHITE! He is not acceptable to black voters. In a sense I feel sorry for Tony Leon. Tony did the Liberal thing and the Liberal thing can only go so far. I will write more about this. I think the DA is going to become another MDC – a lame black opposition of lame blacks half-aligned to the ANC.

I wonder if whites will continue voting for the DA?

I think whites should support the Freedom Front. Jan]

Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon is leaving an organisation battling with its identity and which believes that unless it attracts more black voters, it will be become irrelevant.

This is the crux of a leaked party document that criticises the party for neglecting black issues and promoting white interests, a strategy that – under Leon’s leadership – saw membership growing to 2-million and improving its performance in elections.

But yesterday Leon said he was leaving a stable and united party almost unrecognisable from the shattered organisation he inherited after the 1994 election, boasting “57 members in both houses of parliament; 47 provincial MPs across all nine provinces; 1 100 municipal councillors; and control of over 20 municipalities in three provinces”.

Although Leon said he was leaving in May because he had reached a political ceiling, after spending 13 years at the helm, the leaked document – penned in part by chief executive and strategist Ryan Coetzee – painted a bleak future if the DA continued on its current tactical path.

“If we are going to become a party that is attractive to South Africans of all races then we need to find a way to do two things: first, care as deeply about the ‘delivery issues’ that affect black South Africans as we do about those that affect whites; second, find a way to bridge the racial divide on ‘identity issues’,” the document says.

It also cites the name-changes issue as an example of a party that is perceived as insensitive to blacks.

“(Since) 1994 the DA and its predecessors have not proposed very many (if any) place-name changes. When we do address the issue, it is to oppose specific name changes.

“Given this, it would be difficult for black South Africans not to reach the conclusion that the DA is not interested in sharing place names, but rather in privileging the names chosen by white South Africans,” Coetzee says in the document, which was circulated internally last month.

He also cautions that the DA’s criticism of the ANC could be interpreted as offensive to other South Africans.

“In criticising the ANC we do sometimes communicate irritation, superiority or disdain. This is offensive not merely to ANC public representatives (whose feelings are not really the issue) but also to many ordinary South Africans of all races (whose feelings are very much the issue).”

In announcing his departure at a Johannesburg hotel yesterday, Leon said black membership in the DA grew under his leadership.

But Coetzee – Leon’s trusted lieutenant – says in the document that “to date we have not succeeded – we still poll between just 1 and 2% among black Africans”.

Coetzee warns that the party would not grow further if it continued to rely solely on whites.

“The DA cannot afford to remain a party of minorities, because in each election, minorities account for a smaller proportion of the total electorate, and so the pool of available minority voters will slowly dry up over time.

“Therefore, however great the challenge, the DA has got to face up to it, accept it and take it on. The alternative is irrelevance and slow disintegration over time,” he says.

Coetzee’s document tacitly portrays the party as being in need of a new leadership approach.

The 50-year-old Leon, who started his political career as an organiser for the Progressive Party when he was 18, also admitted to reporters that a party could not be branded around a personality.

“There is a danger, over time, that no matter how healthy or vigorous the internal workings of an organisation and no matter how effective its public representatives, the identity and branding of the party will be almost completely absorbed into the identity and personality of its leader.

“This is not good for the health of the party – or the nation – and, come to think of it, not particularly good for my health either.

“In other words, it is time for the party to move on, and for me to move on as well,” said Leon, citing writing a book as a priority.

He added that he would remain an MP until 2009.

Leon, who stressed that he made his departure decision in August, said he did not want succession to harm the party – a contentious issue that is threatening to tear the ANC apart.

Before the 2004 national elections, Cape Town mayor Helen Zille’s name was punted as a possible successor.

Source: The Star
URL: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId…/p>