DA campaign to focus on ‘lost generation’
THE DA says it has emerged from its federal council ready to hit the ground running in its campaign for the 2019 national election.
This is according to the party’s leader, Mmusi Maimane, who gave a briefing in Cape Town yesterday of the resolutions taken from a party council session.
Maimane said their mission for the year will centre on the country’s “lost generation”, which includes unemployed youth and plans to include them in the party’s preparations to govern in the next two years.
“The 2016 election results represented a deep political shift in South Africa, where the message of change through the ballot box was received and endorsed by people across the country,” he said.
“We know that change in 2019 is up to us, and we spent a lot of time this weekend discussing the work that will have to be done by our branch structures over the coming two years.
“We will have to have personal contact and connection with millions of South Africans who have not voted for the DA before. This can only be done if we start now. “We will be training thousands of activists, and recruiting tens of thousands of new volunteers, in order to achieve our objectives.”
He added that although many of their newly elected mayors and team of committee mayors had done a lot in the past few months, the council had resolved to fully brief the public on issues around the financial situation the party inherited in various municipalities.
“Many of these metros and councils have inherited truly parlous finances, including cash flow shortages and liquidity concerns, very poor debt management, misuse of funds intended for new capital expenditure or operational expenditure, and evidence of widespread misappropriation and corruption,” he added.
Enormous
“While our mayors and their mayoral committees have done good work thus far to turn this situation around, there is an enormous amount of work yet to be done. The Federal Council felt that it was important to spend more time providing the media and public with more detailed information of what we have found, and what is being done to turn it around.”
And with two of the party’s mayors having stepped down from their positions as party leaders, Maimane said they looked forward to welcoming new leaders.
In a few weeks’ time party structures will elect new provincial leaders in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape.
This is to replace Cape Town’s Patricia de Lille who resigned a few weeks ago, and Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip.
With submissions closing for nominations this Wednesday, the race for Western Cape leader remains wide open, with acting MEC for Human Settlement Bonginkosi Madikizela and former police commissioner Lennit Max having made their intentions to run public.
The Eastern Cape will see party provincial chairperson, Veliswa Mvenya and Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral committee member Nqaba Bhanga as likely contenders for the position.