DA’s moral high ground cracks

The sound you hear in the background is the collapse of the moral high ground from underneath the DA.

From an organisation which has cast itself as the conscience of the nation, it is increasingly looking as though its leaders are little different from those in the ANC, whom they perpetually criticise.

There is a clear mudslinging, whispering campaign underway in the party’s upper ranks, seemingly dividing the DA into factions. Just like you-know-who…

It appears as though the two brawlers are our minister of agriculture and DA party leader John Steenhuisen and the recently fired deputy environment minister, Dion George.

First to be targeted in what looked like a coordinated series of leaks to the media by DA “insiders” was George, who is also the party’s head of finance.

ALSO READ: ‘Mad man’ Lesufi survives motion of no confidence

There were claims that he was on a spending spree, lashing out taxpayer money on trips around the world, and that he was arrogant and abusive towards staffers.

Most disturbingly were the whispers that George – who is openly gay – had been sexually harassing some employees.

Hardly had the ink dried on those press revelations though, when the Daily Maverick reported that Steenhuisen had received a default judgment against him for unpaid credit card debt of R150 000.

Not only that, it reported that George, as party finance purse-string holder, had taken away Steenhuisen’s party credit card, because the spending on it could not be reconciled in accounting terms.

Steenhuisen maintained his personal finances are nobody else’s business… but we’ll bet that if an ANC minister earning a similar R2.7 million a year was in the same position, the DA would not keep quiet.

ALSO READ: Gauteng legislature to vote on Lesufi’s future as Premier

It’s all rather nasty and sleazy.

But most of all, it’s worrying.

Even as the DA wants to pick up stones, it’s evident it’s inhabiting a political glass house.