Earlier in the week, the Democratic Alliance and Freedom Front Plus competed in a by-election in the white blue-collar area of Vanderbijlpark. The race itself may also have been a litmus test by the DA as to gauge the willingness of white voters in general to back black candidates, and in this case Nkhoro Makibinyane.

It’s especially relevant after IOL noted that the area traditionally favoured the now effectively, although not completely, defunct far right wing Conservative Party (South African definition again).

The result itself was a loss to the DA in what could have been a safe seat if it had fielded a white candidate but perhaps it’s also not posturing by Helen Zille to suggest looking on the bright side. That the result was a narrow loss in an area that had vestiges of the extreme far right wing racist mentality lurking in it in the past shows progress. It may also begin seeing the fielding of more non-white candidates by the party in an attempt to move away from relying solely its overly white existing voter-base.

It’s been a repeated underlying criticism of Laurence and mine on the site for the party to do so. Hopefully this can be the beginning of a critical juncture and a continuation of the trend, for as much as it may be difficult to admit, whites in South Africa really have no future at the top levels in Government itself. If they are to exert any influence at all on local politics they have to choose non-white candidates to carry their viewpoints across.