John Steenhuisen warns about planned online attacks against DA politicians

Former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen has said that his recent demotions were influenced by coordinated online attacks and that other DA members could be next.

Steenhuisen’s revelations came in an interview with News24 editor-in-chief, Adriaan Basson, where he discussed the events leading up to his removal as Minister of Agriculture.

His removal came after several scandals and controversies, including poor management of the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak.

During his ministerial tenure, Steenhuisen began implementing a government rollout of FMD vaccines, stopping private groups from administering the medication themselves.

These private groups, such as farms and veterinarians, criticised this approach, saying that it was too much government involvement.

Steenhuisen also faced backlash from controversies surrounding his chief of staff, Jana le Roux.

In June, an email from Le Roux was leaked to the public, showing her poor response to communications from FMD Response SA.

This followed FMD Response SA reaching out to Le Roux to request a meeting with Steenhuisen and his team regarding the FMD outbreak.

Le Roux has since issued a public apology for the incident, with Steenhuisen saying the leaked email was “in bad taste”.

She also came under fire for allegedly swearing at an agricultural CEO during an event organised by Nampo.

Steenhuisen responded to this incident by saying that he had not heard the altercation, but if it were true, Le Roux should apologise for her actions.

Steenhuisen said he had also attended the function but had not heard of any issues between the CEO and his chief of staff that night.

Following these events, the current DA leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis, announced a cabinet reshuffle of several DA members.

The main topic of this reshuffle was the removal of Steenhuisen as Minister of Agriculture, who has now moved into a deputy minister role in the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition.

Online attacks on Steenhuisen

In the News24 interview, Steenhuisen discussed numerous people and events which led to his demotion.

One issue which he brought up was the online attacks aimed against him in response to Le Roux’s controversies.

He alleges that there was a planned online attack against him, using fake accounts to give the appearance of public outrage.

“It’s very clear that there was a very well-coordinated bot operation that was being run, and it has been run for the last couple of months,” he said.

He said the online attacks and their strong organisation show that people were invested in his being removed from his ministerial position.

He said many of the accounts which criticised him for his work as Minister of Agriculture were not based in South Africa.

“If you look at many of those accounts, they’re based in the Netherlands and in the US, and they fit very much the type of profiles that you would see from bots,” he said.

He warned that these online attacks could target other DA politicians, such as the Minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, and the Education Minister, Siviwe Gwarube.

“The DA is going to have to get to grips with this because it’s coming for every DA Minister,” he said. “It is going to have to learn to build up the infrastructure to counter this type of attack on its people.”

Online attacks are not a new phenomenon in politics, with many groups accused of using fake social media accounts to stoke outrage or influence the public.

In 2016, Jacob Zuma and his political partners were accused of using bot accounts to defend themselves and the Gupta family online.

These fake accounts were used to spread disinformation and attack journalists and politicians who spoke about the state capture allegations.

Globally, many world leaders have been accused of endorsing the use of bot accounts to bolster their image or attack political rivals.

The DA did not respond to requests for comment on Steenhuisen’s allegations that online attacks were used against him.