The answer to Jack Bloom’s defeat can be found in the heart of the opposition’s transformation story, says George Matlala.
Johannesburg - He may be a jack of all the trades of governance in Gauteng, but Jack Bloom could not convince his counterparts in the DA to make him their premier candidate.
Not that the DA is going to win Gauteng in next year’s elections, but the status of being the opposition’s “shadow” premier would have underscored Bloom’s many years of dedication and hard work, particularly in exposing the province’s poor health system.
It is no question that Bloom has been a star legislator for the DA in Gauteng and a thorn in the ANC’s side for years now.
With 22 years as a public representative, on the face of it Bloom was an obvious choice to become the DA’s premier candidate. He is the kind of guy who would even get ANC members to leak information about the chaos in hospitals to him.
In the run up to the launch of his campaign last month, which he dubbed a “razzmatazz”, Bloom claimed that he had visited and spent a night in 23 informal settlements around Gauteng as part of what he called the “Don't forget the forgotten” campaign.
Indeed, Bloom is known in some townships and his ground work speaks volumes about the kind of a premier he could become.
The ANC in the province is on shaky ground. Research shows that it will shed votes in urban areas, where “clever blacks” are sick and tired of its failure to deliver.
Making matters worse for the ruling party, the wounds of the fights leading to last year’s Mangaung conference have not healed. The battle between premier Nomvula Mokonyane and ANC provincial chairman Paul Mashatile is intensifying, even manifesting itself at the recent funeral of MEC Nkosiphendule Kolisile.
The ANC is in dire straits in Gauteng. The ground is fertile for the DA – and other opposition parties – to make further inroads and reduce the ANC’s majority in the provincial government. And who better to drive the DA’s campaign than Bloom? But the DA decided last week to make its national spokesman Mmusi Maimane its premier candidate in its ambitious plan to win the province.
So, why would Bloom, with his credentials and many nights in townships, lose a race when the party is targeting the townships?
The answer to Bloom’s defeat against the charismatic Maimane can be found in the heart of the opposition’s transformation story or, as some would say, in the “DA and the transformation question”.
By all accounts, Maimane is a political novice, having burst onto the scene in 2011, 17 years after Bloom was elected as a public representative.
His tenure as the opposition’s caucus leader in the Joburg council has been plagued by attempts and counter attempts to oust him.
Those close to him claim the DA old guard – a group of old, “racist” white males, some of whom come from the former National Party – were hell-bent on discrediting him. However, Maimane, whether the white leaders in DA like him or not, fits perfectly into the party’s strategy to woo black voters.
He is a black African, educated, eloquent, charming and, most important, comes from the historical township of Soweto.
It was no coincidence that Maimane took the launch of his campaign to his parents’ home on Mmutle Street, Dobsonville, Soweto.
Like American president Barack Obama, Maimane spoke to the hearts of those who came, instead of gloating about his credentials like Bloom.
He delivered a message of hope, reminding those in attendance that he, too, knows poverty, having lived in Soweto.
In a political masterstroke, Maimane said the apartheid government had condemned his family to Soweto and that he would build a province on the foundation of former president Nelson Mandela’s values of unity.
With this message, Maimane fashioned himself as a compassionate leader who, unlike Bloom, didn’t need to sleep in a township but lived in one.
Noting he was an ANC supporter, Maimane also used Mandela to assure the audience that he was committed to a dream of the “Rainbow Nation” and “A Better Life for All” – the cards the ANC has been using to garner votes since coming to power.
Also helping the young, energetic Maimane is the DA’s campaign to remind people that its founding members and current leaders were involved in the struggle against apartheid.
This will help reduce the DA’s perceived “struggle credentials” deficit, making the likes of Maimane appear to be coming from a “struggle home”.
Maimane is also DA leader Helen Zille’s blue-eyed boy and political ally. With DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, despite strong opposition to their leadership – some senior DA leaders say they are being used as “window dressing” – Maimane represents the future for the opposition.
Bloom, on the other hand, is an old white male from the old guard, whom Zille’s allies believe would not help DA win black voters. He has the right attitude and work ethic but is trapped in a wrong skin colour for the purpose of winning the majority of the black electorate who, to some extent, believe the ANC’s statements that the DA might bring back apartheid.
Unlike former SACP leader Joe Slovo, Bloom does not fit the description of a “white black man”.
So popular was Slovo among black activists that Mandela noted at his funeral in 1993 that “the advocates of racial superiority could not understand how Slovo could be part of the liberation struggle and operate under the leadership of the hapless inferiors they despised.
“The defenders of national oppression could not understand why Slovo would seek to end the dominance of his racial kith and kin.”
But Bloom, like DA Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip, has to give way to Zille’s poster boy and girl.
Sunday Independent