I CAN’T help but feel a little sorry for Athol Trollip, and not just because he too is a middle-aged balding white man living in a country where these attributes are no longer in great demand. I feel sorry for him because he didn’t do anything wrong — in fact, he has done a lot right, reliably, for a long time — yet his replacement as leader of the opposition in Parliament by a relatively young black woman is being hailed as a turning point in SA’s political history and victory for all things good and progressive.

It’s as if he was an obstacle to be overcome, rather than a man who did a difficult and often thankless job to the best of his ability.

Those in the Democratic Alliance (DA) who called on Trollip to stand aside and allow Lindiwe Mazibuko to be elected unopposed “to send the right message” to SA should be ashamed of themselves. He should rather be thanked for insisting that the DA parliamentary caucus stick to the party’s nonracial principles and choose their leader on merit, not race. I can think of no more patronising gesture than for him to have given Mazibuko a free ride based solely on her skin colour. There’s a word for that: racism.

I sincerely hope nobody in the DA caucus fell into the trap of voting for Mazibuko for the wrong reasons, as tempting as it may be to buy into the belief that all the party needs to make major inroads into the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) majority is to put more black people into leadership positions. It is one thing to recognise that racial identity still plays an important role in the electorate’s choice of party, quite another to capitulate to this unfortunate reality by electing token blacks.

Mazibuko is an articulate, thoughtful and competent liberal, reason enough for her to lead a liberal political party’s parliamentary caucus without her race being brought into it. And she assembled an experienced and dynamic team to run her election campaign and support her in the job, which augurs well for her likelihood of success and should compensate for her own limited exposure to the hurly-burly of Parliament.

The trouble with the politics of racial identity is that it excludes the politics of ideas. That is why many in the ruling party, which seemed to start running out of ideas way back when the Reconstruction and Development Programme petered out, are inclined to resort to race whenever they fear they may lose an argument. It’s such an easy path to follow and has been for so long in SA that many of our politicians know no other way. But it is one that cannot work forever, which is why it is in the DA’s interests to be patient and avoid playing into the ANC’s hands by elevating race over ability in its choice of leaders.

Mazibuko was the right choice as leader of the DA’s parliamentary caucus not because she is black, but because she has greater potential than Trollip to revitalise the party and appeal to younger-generation South Africans, millions of whom will be voting for the first time in 2014. If she gets this right, it will be by positioning the DA as the party of ideas and liberal principles, of workable alternatives to the ANC’s moribund racial nationalism.

That is why DA MP Masizole Mnqasela deserved the bollocking he got from DA leader Helen Zille for implying that Mazibuko, with her private-school accent, is not black enough to appeal to black voters. If that is so, then it is an indictment of the electorate — and Mnqasela for buying so enthusiastically into the politics of racial identity — not of Mazibuko.

Again, the DA needs to be patient. It is not a matter of “these are our principles, if you don’t like them we have others”. If the ANC sticks to the destructive path it has been on since its self-serving African nationalist faction seized control in 2007, voters will increasingly realise that it is policy that determines a country’s success or failure, and that the politics of ideas knows neither colour nor accent.

It is true Mazibuko is not a typical young black South African. She had a relatively privileged upbringing, is well educated and can hold her own in a debate without resorting to attacking her opponent. But that’s nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary, it is something all young South Africans should be encouraged to emulate.

• Marrs is Cape editor.