Analyst Theo Neethling says politics was Steenhuisen’s identity for two decades, leaving him with nowhere left to climb in party.
For more than two decades, John Steenhuisen’s career followed a single trajectory.
From local government to parliament, from opposition benches in council and later as chief whip in parliament through to the leadership of the DA, politics was not simply his career.
Politics was Steenhuisen’s identity for two decades
It was his identity, said political analyst Prof Theo Neethling of the University of the Free State.
Now, after being removed as DA leader and demoted from minister of agriculture to deputy minister of trade, industry and competition, the big speculative question is what comes next for the former frontman.
A psychologist said Steenhuisen’s possible conundrum is a challenge many career politicians face.
“While leadership contests are usually analysed in terms of winners and losers, they can also leave former leaders confronting a far more personal dilemma,” they said.
“Unlike executives who retire from business or professionals who return to established careers, many career politicians discover that their public role has become inseparable from their sense of self.”
Can he pivot like Leon did?
Neethling said Steenhuisen now finds himself in much the same position former DA leader Tony Leon faced when his own political ascent came to an end.
“You are in your early 50s, you’ve reached the highest position available in the party and, realistically speaking, there isn’t really a future for you in the party beyond that,” he said.
The comparison speaks to what happens when a politician reaches the summit and discovers there is nowhere left to climb, added Neethling.
Leon faced that reality after stepping down as DA leader. However, Neethling said, his departure from front-line politics was softened by opportunities beyond parliament.
He wrote several books, built a reputation as a public intellectual and was later appointed South Africa’s ambassador to Argentina.
Steenhuisen knows only DA politics
Steenhuisen’s situation may be considerably more complicated, Neethling said.
“Leon was academically very well grounded. You can see it in the books he wrote and more recently his columns and commentary. He had broad intellectual interests and he was able to draw on those,” he said.
“Whether Steenhuisen can do something similar, I don’t know.”
Neethling said unlike many politicians who arrive in parliament after careers in business, law, academia or the professions, Steenhuisen’s political career began young and became his primary occupation.
“He was one of the youngest councillors when he entered public life. Politics and the DA are all he knows,” Neethling said.
Rebuilt DA after Maimane years
“I wonder what the future really holds for him. When you put your head down at night, you have to ask yourself what comes next. That’s a difficult question.”
Steenhuisen’ s ascent through the DA was steady and relentless. He became one of the party’s most recognisable faces, leading it through some of the most turbulent years in its recent history and into the government of national unity.
He is also credited for putting the organisation back together again after the years of former DA leader Mmusi Maimane.
Steenhuisen, for now, remains a deputy minister and a senior figure within the DA.
Whether he can reinvent himself in the way Leon did, Neethling said, remains an open question.