Recently, the DA attacked Pieter Groenewald in Parliament, accusing him of failure to act on corruption in the correctional services.

Despite an unprecedented wave of searches, arrests and dismissals within the prison services, as the department looked to clear contraband and corrupt privileges in the prisons, the efforts seem not to be enough.

However, the DA has demonstrated an almost zenlike calm about the massive looting in the ANC departments they’ve taken over, issuing statements which read like financial reports, and have seen little in the way of the sorts of action they have demanded from Groenewald. They also haven’t been battering the ANC over their the suppurating wounds in their portfolios either.

But this is part of a concerted strategy running up to the 2026 elections. The DA know full well that with only 4% of the black vote, and a black population opposed to the idea of equal citizenship by a ratio of 2:1, they simply cannot hope to penetrate black voter circles with the vigor they so desire.

Instead, they are hoping to shave off support form the VF+. The VF+, for their part, have been forced to take drastic measures where this feud has struck in local administrations.

The DA, after going behind their coalition’s back to work exclusively with the ANC opposition in Oudtshoorn, among other, less legally sound behaviour, were admonished by their coalition partners, including the VF+, and told them to shove it. There was then a vote of no confidence in the mayor, followed by a request to reform the coalition. THe DA told them to shove it. So they convened an open invitation to form a new coalition, and the DA remained the only party telling them to shove it. So they formed a “government of local unity” without the DA.

But this intransigence and irresponsible behaviour may not actually be as dumb as it looks.

The DA immediately threatened to kick the VF+ out of every coalition in the province, but as soon as the VF+ reacted, the DA had a very favourable, and entirely embroidered version of the story published in News24, accusing the VF+ of what they themselves were doing. They then allegedly tried to bribe an ANC councillor in Swellendam to step down, collapsed the Theewaterskloof municipal government, as well as Langeberg.

What they have been doing fairly consistently, is baiting the VF+ into forming coalitions with the ANC by behaving as intransigent, hostile and chaotic as they possibly can get away with.

The result is that the VF+, which draws its support form the conservative side of the white electorate,  will start to see them as ANC collaborators. The VF+ has a tendency to naivité in this regard - leaders tend to assume that so long as they do the right thing, the public will understand. The DA know that lying always works, because the media will always prefer their story to that of an old Afrikaner.

What the VF+ are failing at, is demonstrating serious will to do battle.

In the new municipalities, like those elsewhere, the DA is a rather corrupt party. The VF+ have a clear opportunity to cover the DA in mountains of manure of their own making, but have so far refrained from playing dirty.

Yet from my perspective, this would not be dirty play. The party has a reputation among their support base for honesty and integrity, but also of being a bit toothless. This is not true in many cases, but they can afford to be a more ruthless than they currently are.

The most powerful thing the VF+ could do, would be to set up a team dedicated to centrally collecting information on municipal corruption, issue instructions to their representatives to keep this team abreast of developments, and relentlessly issue press statements, every single week for the next two years, about every instance of corruption, every instance of negligence, every bad-faith engagement, and every instance of policy preference for welfare dependents and land invaders over ratepayers.

This a long list, sDA are not merely corrupt, they cultivate impunity among their chosen members while persecuting whistleblowers and dissenters.I have covered this in Cape Town, George, Drakenstein and Garden Route, and there is even evidence that it affects local election oversight. But the corrupt are almost consistently promoted instead of punished (with the exception of Malusi Booi, who was arrested for gang ties, and so beyond media redemption). My story about Hessequa will be linked here once I clear a legal challenge, but it doesn’t look good down there either.

In every instance of local DA government look into, there is corruption. But their accountants are immaculate, and because they simply manage to produce receipts for everything, they can get a clean audit. Auditors do not look into the soundness of contracts, the necessity of hiring choices, or the legality of gratuities.

And so here, the VF+ can truly fight back.

But it will be a bruising contact sport, because they will have to hold their new coalition partners to account as well, and risk seeing the new footholds they have gained slip from their grasp.

The benefit is worth it though - by being the only party incapable of tolerating corruption or waste, they will acquire an entirely different profile from that which they currently hold.

If they can position themselves as the true opposition, they will become the party of the future - the only opposition party to the right. But a key hitch in this regard is the corrections department. If Groenewald is still hanging onto this position in 2026, they will find it that much more difficult to capitalise on the opportunity.

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