John Steenhuisen is the former leader of South Africa's Democratic Alliance party. When the DA entered national coalition government in 2024, Steenhuisen appointed himself as Agriculture Minister to service a very important constituency for the DA – farmers. The country was dealing with an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, and Steenhuisen stepped up to tackle it.
Since then, he has made a mess of things and seriously upset many farmers and damaged the DA's reputation with that community. This was one of the reasons he was forced not to stand for re-election as leader of the party, and was replaced as leader by Geordin Hill-Lewis, mayor of Cape Town.
In May, Steenhuisen lost a court case against farmer groups, discrediting his handling of the situation up to now.
More recently, Steenhuisen's Chief of Staff was found to have sent messages to colleagues describing requests from a farmer associstion as "some amusement". At an agricultural convention a few months back, she also threatened a farming association leader that she would "F you up in court" over the FMD case.
Now Hill-Lewis has asked President Ramaphosa to reshuffle the DA ministers in cabinet and remove Steenhuisen from the Agriculture Minister, placing him instead as a Deputy Minister in Trade and Industry.
Local Government elections are this year. While the DA has had a positive sign that it is maybe making in roads in Black communities, it has surprisingly also harmed its relationships and reputation in its traditional White base and not because of anything to do with reaching out to Black voters but purely because of performance and policy. They really can't blame woke this time. Even Cape Town Mayor Hill-Lewis is frequently under fire these days by suburban ratepayer associations who accuse him of creating an affordability crisis. He also lost a court battle over his plan to increase property charges/rates in the city.
The demotion of John Steenhuisen may repair these relationships. But the fact that he is being reshuffled instead of being sacked for doing a bad job could also further upset other DA constituencies. The DA is supposed to be a meritocratic party run in a professional and business like manner. Some may ask why Steenhuisen is going to another department if he didn't do a good job at Agriculture.
The DA loses votes to parties which are further to the right or even far right. Conservative White voters (we would stereotype farmers into this category) often go to the Freedom Front Plus, which is Afrikaner Nationalist, and conservative Coloured voters to the Patriotic Alliance, which is also anti-immigration.
The DA is discovering that winning is one thing and governing is another. Nobody would have ever imagined that farmers would be the constituency most upset with the DA in national government.
The removal of Steenhuisen from the Agriculture Ministry represents a concession by the DA that they failed in that portfolio. It is the closing of a chapter on South Africa's fascinating transition to true multi-party governance and the DA's transition to possibly becoming the dominant party in government as the ANC declines. Every few months politics in this country changes in ways you can't expect as a fallout from the loss of the ANC's majority. It is genuinely interesting to watch.
Posted by Top_Lime1820