Zille’s young challenger leaves ring

HELEN Zille’s schoolboy challenger has backed down.

Nick Farrell, 17, confirmed that he had withdrawn as a candidate for the party’s national congress in Port Elizabeth next month, following a chat with Zille about liberal values within the DA.

This is likely to leave the DA leader with an unopposed clear path to re-election.

Farrell will, however, be attending the congress as a voting delegate after he was elected chairman of the DA branch serving the Durban suburbs of Berea and Morningside.

“She called me on March 26 and we had an open and frank discussion on issues such as abortion rights, Israel and Palestine, the death penalty and media freedom. She said that she was always open to a challenge and that I was spunky for raising liberal issues,” Farrell said this week.

“I have been overwhelmed by support from DA members, from older party members and young activists, for my candidacy — and for the overdue discussion of liberalism which it encouraged. Hopefully it will help move the party in the correct direction.”

He was taken aback by the way in which he was attacked and belittled by “some KwaZulu-Natal DA members with national profiles”, especially by their insistence that he had been put up to mounting a candidacy, although he had actually acted of his own accord.

Farrell is considering a political career somewhere in the future, as long as there is a liberal party to support, but first he wants to study law and build a successful legal career.