Former DA heavyweights join Herman Mashaba

Two senior former DA leaders are helping Herman Mashaba to get his new political formation, which has begun with the People’s Dialogue, up and running.

Paul Boughey, who was the chief executive officer (CEO) of the DA for five years, and Jonathan Moakes, the party’s former elections manager, are giving Mashaba strategic advice about the next chapter in his life.

The People’s Dialogue was announced by Mashaba on October 21 after he resigned as mayor of Johannesburg and subsequently resigned from the DA, claiming that it was being taken over by the “far right”.

It is understood that Mashaba is aiming to announce a political party by June.

Shortly after Mashaba’s resignation, Mmusi Maimane resigned as the leader of the DA.

Moakes resigned in May, directly after the election, and Boughey left on October 17.

When Moakes resigned from the DA, he said the party had become a “toxic, abnormal environment”, where “internal fights, a breakdown in trust [and] disunity … became the norm”.

A report about the DA’s loss of more than 470 000 votes in the election recommended that Boughey, Maimane, Moakes and James Selfe, the former chairperson of the party’s federal executive, be held accountable for the party’s performance at the polls.

Contacted for comment, Boughey confirmed that he was throwing his weight behind Mashaba.

“I’m going to work with Herman Mashaba and his team to strive for a nonracial and prosperous South Africa,” he said.

After his resignation, Moakes joined political adviser Stan Greenberg’s company, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research in the UK, as its deputy president.

Greenberg was appointed by the DA in 2013. He was previously an adviser to former UK prime minister Tony Blair.

Moakes did not respond to questions, but Michael Beaumont, the CEO of the People’s Dialogue, said they had “not yet” concluded a contract with Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, but were in talks with Moakes and Greenberg’s company.

“As part of these discussions, Jonathan has given us valued advice and input – just like the thousands of South Africans who have entered into discussions with us on various platforms.”

According to Beaumont, different donors who had given money to the DA and the ANC in the past had already reached out to the People’s Dialogue.

When Mashaba was the mayor of Johannesburg, Beaumont was his chief of staff.

He was previously a provincial director of the DA in KwaZulu-Natal.

However, his relationship with the DA soured somewhat after it emerged that John Steenhuisen, the DA’s interim leader, had an affair with Beaumont’s wife, Terry Kass Beaumont, in 2010.

She married Steenhuisen in 2014.

A senior DA MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he could understand why the former higher-ups in the DA were attracted to Mashaba’s politics.

“His populist sentiments make him a political strategist’s dream,” said the source.

Mashaba launched the People’s Dialogue days after he quit the DA and lost his mayoral position in an apparent protest against the election of former Western Cape premier Helen Zille as DA federal council chairperson in October.

Mashaba said that, from the gatherings he had attended and according to information he had collected during talks with various groups and individuals, it was clear that one of the new party’s main goals would be to eradicate and prevent corruption.

• This article was amended on March 2 2020 to correctly reflect that Herman Mashaba resigned as Joburg mayor.

• We reported that Michael Beaumont’s relationship with the DA soured after it emerged that John Steenhuisen had an affair with Beaumont’s wife, Terry Kass, in 2010.
  
  However, Beaumont has pointed out that he continued serving in the DA until 2016 and left in good standing only when he was appointed as Herman Mashaba’s chief of staff in the City of Johannesburg. He said his relationship with the DA soured last year and had nothing to do with the affair.

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