A hero complex, or saviour complex, describes individuals with a compulsive need to be hero-worshipped. To feel appreciated, they either create or allow situations to deteriorate and, at the right moment, step onto the stage with grandiose flair to rescue the situation — to much applause.
As a country, we suffer the opposite of this psychological phenomenon. We go looking for heroes to lead us, to save us. We take our time, stewing in crises of our own making and, at the right time, set off on a hero-search party.
This is precisely what’s happening in the DA — and in almost every party that matters in this country. Instead of the mindless nodding of heads about Geordin Hill-Lewis as the heir apparent following John Steenhuisen’s impending departure, the DA should be asking itself deeper questions about how it ended up with Steenhuisen in the first place. There are questions about systems they need to answer if the party is to avoid repeating the errors that landed it where it is today.
To be clear, Steenhuisen’s DA failed to meaningfully narrow the gap between itself and the ANC, despite the latter facing way too many challenges. Quantitatively, the DA’s just over 20% of the national vote remains about half of the ANC’s 40%. That’s poor form when one considers that the ANC is at its weakest point in its history. Steenhuisen may well have been the wrong leader at the wrong time, but to attribute every failure to him would be to commit a fatal error.
There are questions around misguided policies on redress, which others have written about. But there is also the matter of why the DA does not have a clear succession plan. The identification and apparent consensus that Hill-Lewis is the “best man for the job” deflects attention from an overdue analysis of what would best serve the country’s second-largest party.
What are the issues to consider? Is installing another white male leader a non-negotiable for the DA? Is the party still of the view that Mmusi Maimane’s leadership was a mistake — and therefore believe it would be a mistake to trust, say, Solly Malatsi, Siviwe Gwarube or even Solly Msimanga? Steenhuisen’s farewell press conference would have tickled Maimane’s fancy, even if he protests otherwise.
Herein lies the problem: the insistence on Motsepe, as with Hill-Lewis, is based on shallow analysis centred on finding a hero — someone to rescue the party, even if from itself
It matters little to me whether the next leader is Hill-Lewis or Gwarube, who I believe will be great, but I believe the DA must think about what keeps it small regardless of the ANC’s ineptitude. It must also reflect on why it chooses not to include a deputy leader position in its structures alongside the federal chair. Is the party trying to manage expectations? Well, look at David Mabuza, may his soul rest in peace, or Paul Mashatile. It doesn’t follow that a deputy must eventually become the leader. But it’s important to show potential voters what the leadership pipeline looks like.
This hero-search trap is how the ANC searched for and ended up with Cyril Ramaphosa as Jacob Zuma’s deputy. It was Ramaphosa’s credibility — before his Phala Phala fiasco — that the party was after, following those wasted years by the villager from Nkandla. Ramaphosa, the hero, delayed the ANC’s potential premature slump when he took over. It was his inability to translate the “Ramaphoria” into tangible gains that led to the vote-haemorrhaging we witnessed in the 2024 general election.
Today, the ANC, like the DA, is once again not so quietly looking for a new hero. Internally, many are beginning to fear that a Mashatile presidency could speed the party into irrelevance, while secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, another pretender to the throne, needs to do a lot of work before he could be considered statesmanly. Is he the person to send to Brics summits, the G20 or other global fora? Could he push a less popular but correct narrative against global powers? Is he the person to send to the Oval Office and expect to hold his own, as Ramaphosa once did when Donald Trump dimmed the lights?
It is ANC members — the ones who choose the leadership — who must ask whether the people they’re putting forward have appeal beyond the confines of the party.
Some truths are self-evident. This is why, in desperation, other ANC members have begun to toss Patrice Motsepe’s name around, notwithstanding his saying he’s not available. Can Motsepe hold his own in global fora and better represent the interests of the country? Would he have appeal beyond the ANC’s traditional base? No doubt.
Yet herein lies the problem: the insistence on Motsepe, as with Hill-Lewis, is based on shallow analysis centred on finding a hero — someone to rescue the party, even if from itself.
Diagnosis, however, has got to heal what is wrong with the party, not merely the swapping of current leaders. Both parties must confront the reality that they do not resonate with voters.
For the ANC, genuine renewal is critical. Whatever the ANC tells itself matters little when society broadly agrees that its talk of renewal rings as hollow as discredited former police minister Bheki Cele’s explanations for those R300,000 and R200,000 cash payments from Cat Matlala.
For the DA, it means thinking beyond the Cape cocoon and honestly asking whether it is content with gaining votes from disgruntled former ANC supporters or whether it wants to position itself to appeal to everyone, regardless of their colour.
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