DA ready to govern, and Maimane ready to lead
IN 1994, former DA leader Tony Leon turned down Nelson Mandela’s offer of a cabinet seat in the government of national unity. This was a profound moment in our nation’s history. Many accused Leon of being unpatriotic when, in fact, the opposite was true.
He knew that South Africa had no chance of succeeding unless there was a strong opposition to the ANC. In his 14 years as leader, he grew the party from 1.7% to 16% -- a truly remarkable achievement by any standard.
Another profound moment came in 2006 when Helen Zille ran for mayor of Cape Town and won enough votes to cobble together a seven-party coalition government in the City of Cape Town.
This was the first time in a democratic South Africa that the ANC had been voted out of power.
A year later, Zille became the leader of the DA and declared that the DA was no longer just a party of opposition, but a party of government.
In her eight years at the helm of the DA, she doubled the party’s vote to over four million at the last election. And the DA won two provincial elections in the Western Cape with an outright majority.
If the DA story were one day written as a trilogy, parts one and two would be about Leon and Zille’s leadership respectively: how the DA became the official opposition, and then a party of government.
Part three of the DA story still needs to be written. I want it to be the story of how the DA began challenging for power at a national level, finally bringing an end to the ANC’s stranglehold on our politics.
If I am elected leader of the DA on Sunday, I will work day and night to make this a reality.
When I ran for Gauteng premier last year, we cov- ered 50 000km in our campaign bus, meeting with people in every community in that province.
I chatted to informal traders in Alex, to business people in Soweto and suburbanites in Sandton. We visited the Apartheid Museum, the Voortrekker Monument and Freedom Park.
During that campaign, it became clear that people in our country of all races and backgrounds share many of the same values.
They want the freedom to make their own choices about the life they want to live.
And they want the power to improve their lives, because freedom means nothing without opportunities.
These are universal values. They transcend race and socio-economic circumstances. They are the DA’s values.
Our challenge is to make an authentic connection with a new generation of voters on the basis of shared values, not race.
This is why I am committed to fighting against populists who use racial mobilisation to divide our people.
While others trade on the divisions of the past, I will position the DA as the party of tomorrow.
These are exciting times to be part of the Democratic Alliance. I believe we will emerge from our federal congress on Sunday stronger and more united than ever before, ready to start writing a new chapter in our nation’s history.