The DA Appeals for a More Active Role for the US in SA Elections

South Africa’s official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has irked the government and the ruling party by appealing for a marked involvement in SA’s national elections scheduled for May 29, 2024. In a letter sent to the US Embassy in Pretoria for the attention of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the DA expresses grave concern over the free and fairness of the polls. They cite in particular a new party in the country’s body politic, known as MK – acronym for Umkhonto we Sizwe Party, which is led by former President Jacob Zuma. The MK’s party has since entrance in the country’s national politics often used threatening language and tone, and its narrative intimidating and uncouth in other circumstances.

It is this emerging trend that appears to have triggered the DA to seek to the intervention of the US government in monitoring the May polls. In the letter, the DA’s shadow minister for International Relations and Cooperation, Emma Louse Powell, writes: “Following on from the letter sent to your esteemed office by the Multi-Party Charter, the Democratic Alliance, as the Official Opposition in the South African Parliament, wishes to sharpen our appeal to the international community in helping to ensure the integrity of the upcoming elections (NPE2024).”

The letter says the elections will be “the most crucial” since the first democratic elections in April 1994 when Mandela ascended to power. Powell writes: “For the first time in democratic South Africa, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) may receive below 50% of the national vote. The ANC may further lose control of a number of provinces, thereby losing their majority in the upper chamber of Parliament, the National Council of Provinces.” In the DA’s forecast of the outcome of the polls, the DA argues that “the recent establishment of the MK Party is set to gain significant support in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, which may have concomitant implications at the national level”.

On the perceived threats by the MK Party, the DA says: “We are of the view that MK poses a substantive risk to the continued peaceful nature of our political discourse as a nation.

The fluid nature of the current political landscape thus presents both significant risks as well as opportunities. We know that as the geopolitical sands continue to shift, those of us invested in the political values of freedom, tolerance, peace and democracy, must do everything in our power to stem the rising tides of populism, fanatism, oppression and tyranny.”

The DA further states in their impassioned plea to the US by stating that “when democracies work together to preserve a rules based international order that promotes democracy, individual freedom, political franchise and universal human rights, nations thrive” together.