Opinion| "Why Gauteng Cannot Afford Manufactured Crises"

The Democratic Alliance’s latest motion of no confidence against Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi is not a sincere act of accountability — it is a calculated piece of political theatre. It arrives not because Premier Lesufi has failed the province, but precisely because his administration is disrupting long-standing comfort zones and power arrangements that benefited a few at the expense of the majority.

For a party that claims to care about “good governance”, the DA has adopted an astonishingly selective outrage. When governance scandals emerge in DA-controlled provinces or metros, the party calls for “patience” and “due process”. Yet in Gauteng, where Premier Lesufi’s government is confronting crime, youth unemployment, failing infrastructure and township marginalisation head-on, the DA chooses to weaponise oversight for publicity rather than policy.

The motion is not supported by facts of collapse — but by political frustration. Lesufi’s government has rolled out interventions that the DA fought and ridiculed:

• Crime Prevention Wardens that have reshaped visible policing in communities abandoned by SAPS

• Mass youth employment programmes absorbing tens of thousands who were previously excluded from the economy

• Education and township economy reforms that disturb old procurement networks

• Expanded social programmes aligned with service access and social cohesion

Instead of engaging these interventions on merit, the DA performs motions in the legislature to recycle the headline: “Lesufi must go” — even when they cannot prove failure or present an alternative vision.

It is intellectually dishonest for the DA to pretend Gauteng is being misgoverned while residents experience:

• Increased visibility of safety personnel

• Expanded skills placement for unemployed youth

• Revived use of public infrastructure like schools and community facilities

• Targeted investment in previously neglected township spaces

If the same results were delivered by a DA Premier, the party would be parading them as a model of South African governance. The difference is not in performance — it is in who is delivering the progress.

Members of the Gauteng Legislature must not validate a motion based on bitterness, optics and fear of a Premier that is visibly shifting the governance centre of gravity toward ordinary people. To endorse this motion is to reward opportunism over substance and to send a message that political noise matters more than provincial stability and continuity.

This is not just a defense of Lesufi — it is a defense of institutional seriousness. The work transforming Gauteng cannot be paused every quarter for a DA press conference disguised as constitutional duty.

The motion deserves only one response from all rational parties:

 Reject it. On principle. On consistency. On the truth.

By Siyabonga Skosana