Wilmot James has accused the current DA leadership of strategically drifting, losing direction and becoming an “alternate ANC”.

NDP

During a leadership debate with Mmusi Maimane on pay-tv channel KykNet on Monday, Dr James said that he led the party’s plan for growth and jobs which has passed all the party’s constitutional structures but has been forgotten by the current leadership.

“Starting in May last year, nobody speaks about it. it’s an accepted policy of the DA. Suddenly there is no discussion about it anymore and it’s disappeared.

“So I think that’s where the strategic drift came in and presently the DA is drifting strategically, it doesn’t know where it is, it doesn’t know where it is heading. It flirts with the NDP, it is basically becoming an alternate ANC under the current leadership and I intend to set that right,” he said.

In response, Maimane strongly disagreed with Dr James saying that he was part of the leadership that took the decisions he has labelled ‘strategic drifting’.

“I think what happened is that when we marched, I’ll give you an example, we marched to Luthuli House to say to South Africans ‘we want to create a plan for real jobs’, that was not strategic drift, that was simply saying ‘we want real jobs. We want jobs that are created in the private sector, want small businesses to grow’, that’s not strategic drift, that’s sticking to our principles of saying ‘South Africans who start small businesses can go it forward’,” said Maimane.

On race

Although both Mmusi Maimane and Dr Wilmot James agreed that blacks are still affected by the past segregation laws, they clashed on how important it is today.

Maimane said that he believes the focus should blacks who were left out of the economy during Apartheid.

“Fact of the matter is that a child who’s in Waterkloof gets a better education than a child who’s in Mamelodi.

“So I think when it comes to economic redress we must have a five year plan that addresses, that measures how we doing on that basis but what we’ve got to be focused on is making sure that we focus on black advancement and making sure young black South Africans can find equity into the economy,” Maimane said

James went on to say that although race is still a factor it mattered less. He spoke about tackling the backlog when it comes to educational qualification and his solution was that there should be accelerated training for those who were previously disadvantaged or excluded in the past.

He had this to say about business:

“When it comes to business opportunities we need a different approach stimulating entrepreneurship and business opportunities in under served areas. And basically what needs to be done is to extend business support into every corner of South Africa and provide special opportunities for venture capitalist that were excluded from the past. “

The new party leader will be elected at the federal congress in Nelson Mandela Bay on 9 and 10 May 2015.