‘Disappointed’ Mbali Ntuli quits DA to seek out ‘change-makers’
Mbali Ntuli, who ran against John Steenhuisen for the position of DA leader in 2020, has resigned from the party. Ntuli, who will also be resigning from her position in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, told DM168 that, after 15 years in the party, “I think I have done my bit and I am ready to do that elsewhere.”
Ntuli formally announced her resignation on Thursday 17 March. “I feel like I have a lot of energy and a lot of ideas. I am trying to explore different ways of being useful to the country. I want to get back to communities, I am feeling very confined where I am now.
“I want to stretch myself [as a leader]. I have done as much as I can to do some of those things in the DA, but I think it is a good time now to exit the stage,” she said.
Her resignation follows those of Lindiwe Mazibuko, Mmusi Maimane and Phumzile van Damme, who left the party to go into the non-profit sector. Others, such as Bongani Baloyi and Athol Trollip, have joined ActionSA, the new political home of former Johannesburg DA mayor Herman Mashaba.
Ntuli’s disengagement from the DA has unofficially been evident for months. She has rarely mentioned the party on Twitter.
Asked about this, she said: “I think there has definitely been a long period of being generally disappointed. I can’t always tweet about things that I am no longer feeling passionate about, just because of who I am. Also, I don’t want to answer questions about things that I might disagree with. I also didn’t want to be in a position where I constantly had to be calling the party out. I think I have been forthright in the way I feel about many things.”
Asked if she’d still vote for the DA, she replied: “I’ll see what happens in the next elections and which party best speaks to me.”
Ntuli’s 2020 campaign for party leader had the slogan “Let’s save the DA, so we can save SA”. Running on a ticket of empathy and inclusivity, she said at the time: “I have run my campaign showing what I want from this party is for everyone to feel included. The idea of diversity as one of our principles should be the one cherished the most.”
That message did not win over DA representatives. Steenhuisen got 79% of the vote.
Ntuli told DM168 her resignation would allow her to pursue her core interest: working alongside communities. Her strength in this regard has been acknowledged by peers, who credit her work with former KwaZulu-Natal leader Zwakele Mncwango in significant DA victories in uMkhanyakude, in the north of the province.
She said she was sad that her years of constituency work in northern KwaZulu-Natal had since been neglected. The DA lost all but one seat in the uMkhanyakude District in 2021, which made her “really emotional”.
“It is as if the party gave up on the strategy of being in those communities.”
Ntuli said: “I am going to start an organisation that is going to find change-makers. People [who] are basically doing the work of government without the help of government, and in parallel structures in communities. I want to raise money to help them and make them proper change-makers in their communities [where they can] have an impact.”
She had good relationships with most of the DA team in KwaZulu-Natal and would miss these colleagues. There were others in the party she’d be happy to “never see again”.
She urged the DA to formalise an independent “sounding board” to help it with decisions, which were often made in an “echo chamber” and lacked objective scrutiny.
She would not join another political party “for now”, but added: “Politics is in my blood.
“I am steering away from politicians, just jumping from one organisation to another. I do not want to just be comfortable. I want to challenge myself. I am not formally going to be talking to anyone in the political space.
“I am also scared of using the word ‘movement’ now because it is such a smokescreen for people who are in politics … who went into the ether to start a political party and said it was a movement. Mine is going to be able to help change-makers in the community,” she said.
KwaZulu-Natal-born Ntuli lost her father – taxi boss Big Ben Ntuli, who also chaired the Long Distance Association – at the age of eight, which she has said had a big impact on her life. She attended Wykeham Collegiate in Pietermaritzburg before obtaining a social science degree from Rhodes University. She has also run the family taxi business. In the DA, she has held various leadership roles
Ntuli lives in Durban and is expecting a second child.