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That the Democratic Alliance (DA) is a liberal democratic party will likely determine the nature of its approach to President Cyril Ramaphosa. For that, the African Natural Congress (ANC) may be grateful. If the DA were a revolutionary party, the ANC would have a lot more to worry about.

The liberal democratic tradition in which the DA is schooled treats power as dangerous unless it is limited by law, institutions, rights, and democratic processes. A liberal democratic party therefore tends to believe in fair and well-functioning constitutional processes and parliamentary oversight. It wants the state to work properly, correctly, fairly, and openly rather than to be turned to a tool with which to achieve power. It wants leaders held accountable, but through institutions rather than revolutionary mobilisation.

Such a party does not naturally think in terms of crushing opponents, accelerating contradictions, or using crisis to break the ruling party’s power. It thinks in terms of procedure, legality, institutional restraint, and public accountability.

That is why the DA’s natural approach to Ramaphosa and Phala Phala will likely be a sincere pursuit of due process, committee hearings, evidence, testimony, parliamentary accountability, and respect for the Constitution.

If the DA were a revolutionary party schooled in revolutionary theory, it would think very differently about Ramaphosa and the ANC. A revolutionary DA would see the Phala Phala crisis as a moment of weakness to be exploited to throw the ANC into chaos so that the DA could win power in South Africa. Processes and parliament would only be necessary in as far as they aided to do that.

A useful way to think about the difference is this:

• •A liberal democratic DA would say, let the impeachment process run properly.
• •A revolutionary DA would say, make the impeachment process a weapon with which to wreck the ANC.

A revolutionary-minded DA would force a vote of no confidence and then demand an immense price from the ANC even as it forced every ANC MP to choose publicly between Ramaphosa and his successors in order to turn ANC leaders, members, and voters against each other. It would thereby seek to engineer such internal ANC chaos as to deny the ANC time to regroup and negotiate an orderly succession. The goal would not only be Ramaphosa’s removal – in order to trigger a further series of ANC crises and factional splits – but then to mercilessly attack each of his successors. The end goal would be to use Parliament and its processes to weaken the ANC so severely that it turns inwards against itself, surrenders further public confidence, and loses the organisational ability to run an ordered 2029 election campaign.