Mmusi Maimane’s comments on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s first 100 days in office were out of sync with the DA’s and South Africa’s new political reality.

It quotes Maimane as saying that, “Cyril Ramaphosa has been underwhelming, as South Africans have rightfully expected much more from the President. We remain stuck in a jobs crisis, while our country is not safe from crime, and our politicians continue to commit acts of corruption and nepotism…”

Could Maimane have turned our country around in 100 days, made debt and corruption disappear, change the greed and self-service that is the South African way? Could he have done it whilst in a faction fight, or whilst ANC and EFF protestors raised hell in DA-led land?

Is the role of opposition politics to support or be hypocritically rhetorical? Is it all about the next election or everything that has been witnessed before?

Could Mmusi Maimane do better with greater responsibility than he has now? To answer that question, let’s examine his easier job the past 100 days… as Opposition, and as the Leader of the DA.

The politically holier-than-thy stunt the DA pulled with Zuma doesn’t work when you have a President that refuses to be arrogant for arrogance sake. Ramaphosa concedes or agrees where necessary. He doesn’t fight the unnecessary fight for ego. Ramaphosa’s attitude makes it clear that the DA isn’t his main agenda – running the country, raising investment and holding the ANC together makes the DA relatively insignificant.

Anyone bothering to read this article has already read too much about the Patricia de Lille catastrophe so let me keep it short. The DA is divided, faction politics more important than transparency, democracy abandoned before the feet of the DA Federal Executive. It’s clear that both sides of the DA aren’t willing to dig into alleged corruption, more interested in a fight for power that is as tabloid as a preacher and a stripper, and as serious as a lawyer and a dead dog (that dog being us, the Public). The DA has shown that it’s willing to bend, break and create rules for its own satisfaction. That’s downright scary. The DA can only claim credit for the fastest revolving door into the courts, not as opposition but in persecution of itself.

The Tshwane scandal with Marietha Aucamp being unqualified and earning more than a million a year never adhered to the DA’s good governance slogans. Many, for the first time outside of the Day Zero province, realised that the DA could do wrong. Maimane has been unable to shut that awakening. The ANC wouldn’t let him.

I won’t detail your municipalities under investigation but know there are at least 7.

No argument, whether substantive or false, will alter the fact that the majority of the Western Public are mad at the DA for their perceived inadequate handling of Cape Town’s water crisis.

Helen Zille, the DA’s most revered icon, has become so irrelevant that it’s almost impossible to believe that she carries the great responsibility of Premier of the Western Cape. It shows that the Public can’t differentiate between political and government position, the latter more important but never getting its due and thus lacking the required Public oversight it needs. Nevertheless, the distance between queen and botox has been quick. As the lights dimmed on her show, so they failed to brighten sufficiently on their intended next superstar, Bonginkosi Madikezela who has, on social media, shown himself to be too similar to other black leaders in the DA – all show, no substance, too subservient to the white shadows of the DA.

Even lovable DA Orator Whip John Steenhuisen couldn’t gather more than a hundred people into the Knysna School hall last week because residents have had their hope in his party trampled. The town’s severe crisis is entirely created by the DA who chose cover-up of cronies which led to more corruption and even more cover-up. Even if they sacrifice their Mayor Eleanore Spies to the no-motion vote on Wednesday, they’ll have a mountain to climb before confidence is restored (and that’s unlikely to happen before the elections). Residents are no longer interested in campaign talk that isn’t about the lives they’ve been living. They just want the corruption to stop and honesty to begin. They want to know where the hell their lives are going.

The DA denied that it may split into two parties because sell-out after sell-out in pursuit of black votes for more power meant the sacrificing of liberalism for socialism. It’s true that the DA has always had in-fighting, previous NP and DP members struggling to get along, but its important that it’s now along even more racial lines, making them just like other party’s, colour aware instead of colour blind.

The DA were respected for being moral not because they were moral but because they were allowed to tell the Public that they were, again and again. They were smug with DA good versus Zuma’s evil laugh. That repetition is the worst kind of fake honesty when exposed because it’s not just a correction but a failure in the DA as a belief system. When you dash hope you dash the believer.

In response to their weaknesses exposed, the DA lashed out at “biased media”, forgetting that the same media gave them a roller-coaster of a free ride for their 8 years under Zuma. It proves that its better to be able to stand on fact than image, better to have more laurels than the fingers you point.

Most of all, Mmusi Maimane hasn’t convinced South Africa that he, and not the DA Federal Executive, is in charge. Potential voters have no idea who or what they might vote for… so they may choose to not vote at all.

Maimane’s past 100 days in office proves, again, that he’s the DA’s black fairy dust, a fantasy that cannot compare to action that real leadership requires, especially with regards fighting internal corruption.

For all his faults and critics, and a presidency that cannot be guaranteed to last, Ramaphosa is the heavy head that wears the reality crown.

The DA’s best chance at success is to hope that the past revisits them, that they remain as one party whilst the ANC loses its Zulu leg to the African Transformation Congress (ATC). It’s certain that the DA cannot be successful alone.

NB: For our democracy to get fixed it must begin by looking within. I would like to hear all political parties telling me how they are going to be better than they are. This concept of opposition at all costs is impractical. Nothing’s perfect but there can only be check and balance if the party pointing the finger at the other is making serious attempt to be ethical and transparent itself. I want the DA to admit their crimes against my beloved Knysna and listen to the Public telling them what they must do. Democracy is not where we are told who our representative must be. There must be accountability via recall or jail. I definitely don’t enjoy being forced into exile because the totalitarian DA Federal Executive hunts whistleblowers.