The Theatre of Conscience: A Hypocritical Crisis in South African Politics

 

South Africans watched with mixed emotions this week as the Democratic Alliance (DA) erupted in righteous indignation over Minister Nobuhle Nkabane’s handling of the Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) board appointments. With television cameras rolling and social media abuzz, the DA declared its intent to lay criminal charges against the Minister for allegedly lying to Parliament, manipulating processes to benefit politically connected individuals, and undermining public accountability. Their call for her resignation was loud, their outrage carefully packaged for public consumption.

As someone deeply involved in the struggle to amplify the voices of marginalised and affected communities across the country, I must say: I welcome this sudden crisis of conscience. I welcome any genuine effort to hold power accountable, to demand ethical conduct, and to call out the abuse of public office.

But I also lament the crushing hypocrisy that cloaks this display. Because for all their talk of integrity, justice, and good governance, the DA's moral compass seems to only activate when their own access to the levers of power is threatened. When it's their seats at the table, their influence in budgetary allocations, their access to the patronage networks of state and party – then, and only then, do they rise in indignation.

Let us not forget that the very same DA MPs, who now profess to be defenders of Parliament’s integrity, sat silently in the Portfolio Committee on Mineral and Petroleum Resources (PCMPR) while the Chairperson misled the Committee, suppressed community voices, and shielded the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) from scrutiny. They were made aware of MACUA’s evidence of ongoing ethical breaches, including how the Chairperson misrepresented stakeholder positions, ignored testimony requests, and excluded community stakeholders from oversight visits that directly affected their communities.

They said nothing. Not because the evidence wasn’t clear. It was. Not because the violations weren’t serious. They were. But because it didn’t affect them, or more precisely, it didn’t affect the elite voting blocs they are interested in representing. It affected poor, rural, marginalised communities. Communities that, in the eyes of many in our Parliament, do not deserve humanity, dignity, or voice.

This duplicity reveals much about the current political moment. It shows that for parties like the DA, the outrage is not driven by principle, but by political calculus. Their fury is not animated by injustice or concern for the people, but by a fear that their own place at the feeding trough of state resources may be shrinking. And so, with their political fortunes in flux, they rush to decry cadre deployment, not because they oppose patronage politics in principle, but because it is the ANC, not the DA, that controls it at this moment.

The DA’s latest manoeuvre must be understood for what it is: not a stand against corruption, but a squabble over access. A performance, carefully curated, to obscure their own silence when it counted most. Because if they truly cared about ethics, fairness, or good governance, they would have stood with MACUA and the dozens of affected communities we represent when we raised the alarm. They would have asked why our letters to the PCMPR were ignored. They would have demanded answers when the Chairperson dismissed our request to present evidence in the Stilfontein tragedy, where over 90 informal miners died under suspicious regulatory silence. They would have insisted that the DMPR answer for the R700 million in gemstones seized at OR Tambo, allegedly mined illegally by a politically connected company.

But they didn’t. And that silence speaks louder than any press conference.

It is this selective morality that exposes the DA’s true interest: access to power, not justice for the people. Their press releases speak of defending the Constitution, but their conduct in committee rooms tells another story, one of indifference, elitism, and complicity. And in this duplicity, they do not stand apart from the ANC. They stand alongside it. Together, they form what we might euphemistically now call DANC, a new elite coalition defined not by ideology, but by shared proximity to power, privilege, and political expediency.

The DANC is not bound by party manifestos or policy differences, but by a tacit agreement: protect the system, insulate the powerful, and exclude the people. So long as access to contracts, budgets, and appointments remains intact, there is little appetite to confront the deeper rot, the systemic silencing of poor and working-class communities, the marginalisation of grassroots voices, the everyday ethical erosion of Parliament as a space for people, not just politicians.

Organisations like MACUA know this firsthand. We have seen how committees will selectively engage with "stakeholders" that pose no political threat, while ignoring those who raise uncomfortable truths. We have watched as oversight visits are arranged in secrecy, participation choreographed to produce only pre-approved narratives. We have witnessed, time and again, how Parliament’s constitutional duty to facilitate public participation is turned into a bureaucratic shell game, rules invoked to exclude, procedures weaponised to deflect.

So, forgive us if we do not clap along as the DA pretends to be the conscience of the Republic. We know better. And the people of South Africa deserve better.

To truly challenge corruption, we must move beyond political theatre and demand structural change. We must build a Parliament that sees poor people not as photo ops or data points, but as rights-bearing citizens. We must insist that ethical conduct is not just a slogan, but a practice, one that applies equally whether the victim of misconduct is a billionaire donor or a barefoot grandmother living in a mining-affected village.

The DANC, this unholy alliance of ANC insiders and DA opportunists, will not deliver that future. Only the people will. And it is the people, especially those at the margins, who must rise to reclaim their place in our democracy.

We must continue to stand with those communities. We must continue to expose ethical failures, whether committed by a Minister or a Chairperson. And we must continue to remind South Africa that democracy is not something to be performed by elites on a stage, it is something to be fought for, lived, and defended from the ground up.