DA stalwart under siege with renewed calls for him to be fired over attacks on United States leaders

Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder has called for DA stalwart Ryan Coetzee to be fired for fanning the flames of the ANC’s anti-American sentiments.

The issue started after Coetzee criticised a speech by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio from Pnyx Hill near the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.

In his speech, Rubio praised Western civilisation and said it was something worthy of pride and defence.

DA strategist Ryan Coetzee responded to the speech in a social media post, arguing that this was the wrong direction for the West.

“The West isn’t one tradition. There are competing traditions,” he said in a post referencing Rubio’s speech.

“Those different ways of seeing the world and our place in it have been in competition and often bloody conflict for 3000 years.”

“Trump, Hegseth and Rubio do indeed represent one of those traditions, but it’s the wrong one. It needs to be defeated again. And again and again, if necessary.”

Analysts and commentators from The Common Sense slated Coetzee’s comments and said that he should be fired.

Investor and author Simon Lincoln Reader said that Coetzee is not knowledgeable on these matters and that his comments are ignorant.

“This response that he gives here is not worthy of the Democratic Alliance, which is a party that exists because of the foundations that were set where Marco Rubio spoke.”

Lincoln Reader added that this was a poor and irresponsible representation of the DA. “I’m very disappointed that a representative from the DA is talking like that,” he said.

Renowned political analyst Frans Cronje said Coetzee’s comments were fatally bad and that the DA should fire him.

“This has to be the end. You cannot be this reckless about a relationship that is so critical to a party that is so important to the country’s future,” Cronje said.

Corné Mulder has called for Ryan Coetzee to be dismissed

In a press statement on 19 October 2026, Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder said that Coetzee should be dismissed for attacking the US and Western civilisation.

He highlighted that relations between South Africa and the United States are currently balanced on a knife’s edge.

“During this time, Coetzee fanned the flames of the ANC’s anti-American sentiments by sharply criticising the US and Western values in general,” he said.

“The needless onslaught is shocking, reckless and extremely damaging to South Africa’s international relations, particularly with the United States.”

Mulder said that Rubio emphasised the historical foundations of democracy and freedom, rooted in ancient Greece.

He implored the West to rediscover the virtues, courage, and strength to defend Western civilisation because it is worth protecting.

Mulder said that it was alarming that the DA’s strategist harbours the same anti-American sentiments and hostility towards the Trump administration as the ANC.

It was particularly worrying, he added, that Coetzee is the man who guides and coordinates DA ministers in the Government of National Unity (GNU).

“South African businesses, the agricultural sector and ordinary citizens are paying the price for the ANC’s alienation of Western partners,” he said.

“Meanwhile, the DA’s top strategist opts to add fuel to the fire by lashing out at the key leaders of South Africa’s most important economic partners.”

Mulder argued that the Democratic Alliance cannot sit on the fence regarding the relationship with the United States.

“The party should state whether it endorses Coetzee’s remarks and views, seeing as he is regarded as one of the major opinion-formers in the party,” he said.

“If the Democratic Alliance does not agree with Coetzee, he should be summarily dismissed.”

“It is alarming and significant that so far, the DA has not responded to Coetzee’s statements of its own accord.”

Ryan Coetzee explains his argument

After the debacle made the news, Ryan Coetzee wrote a post, titled “Traditions in the West”, explaining his views. This post is reproduced in full below.

On the left we have a strand that runs from Rousseau through Robesspire and Saint-Juste and through Marxist-Leninism to Stalin, who had of course stopped any pretense at being for “the people” or the helping the hand of history and exemplified nothing more than the will to power. It ends with the Gulag.

On the right we have a tradition that marries attachment to authoritarianism (the pre-reformation church; monarchy) with the Romantic response to the enlightenment, which gave rise to the identitarian politics of the right, including nationalism, nativism and ultimately fascism. Again, it ends with the naked will to power. It ends with Auschwitz.

Then there is the liberal tradition, with a small “l”. Conservatives, social democrats, many western socialists and of course liberals with a big “L” belong to this tradition, which draws a belief in reason from the enlightenment and a belief in the uniqueness of individuals from Romanticism. This is the tradition that gives us the US Revolution, rather than the French version. It’s the tradition that gives us respect for reason, human rights, separation of powers, market economics, the welfare state (broadly defined) and universal franchise. It’s the tradition that gives us much of South Africa’s constitution, too.

That third tradition is the one that has delivered freedom and prosperity to the West, and for those non-western countries (South Korea, Japan, etc) that have embraced the universal values on which it is founded. And it is the tradition that needs defending now, from both anti-democratic, authoritarian left and ethno-nationalist, authoritarian right. It needs defending in the West, but also right here in South Africa.

This tradition is of course not without its own faults as the history of colonialism shows. Or as the person of Thomas Jefferson reveals. But as Barack Obama put it, it is in this tradition that the arc of history bends towards justice. The other two traditions, not so much.

So when people say they are defending “western civilization” it helps to be clear about which tradition they mean. One of those traditions needs urgent support. The other two need to be defeated, again.

And in South Africa you don’t do that by pitting your ethno-nationalism against someone else’s, or your nativism against someone else’s. You do it by holding the centre: individual rights, separation of powers, democracy, a market economy, a welfare safety net, due process, a dollop of respect for humanity. Basic human decency.

That’s how you stand up for civilization.