Africa-Press – South-Africa. DA polling places the party “in spitting distance” of surpassing the ANC’s electoral support and becoming the biggest party in Gauteng, DA federal council chairperson Helen Zille has said.
“We have never been closer,” she told delegates at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, Gauteng, on Saturday.
“It depends on you and all of us.”
Zille was addressing the DA Gauteng congress, where a new provincial leader will be elected.
The fact that the country is months away from the general election loomed large in Zille’s address.
The ANC narrowly kept hold of Gauteng in the 2019 election, securing a little more than 50% of the vote. Zille said the ANC was a dying party and compared it to two other political parties that flourished during apartheid and died swiftly because they failed to adapt.
She said voters would have a choice between the ANC and the DA in the 2024 election, but the DA’s main opponent would eventually be the EFF.
“We are in spitting distance of the yellow party, and this election may be blue versus yellow. That is what it is in this election. But it won’t be long before a choice between blue and red [EFF]. This will be the choice for South Africa. I have lived long enough to see the death of two parties, one being the United Party. They could not default to principles; they unravelled and died,” Zille said.
The DA has long attacked the EFF as a party of hatred in political commentary, and Zille focused on the same critique in a brief speech that was largely well-received by the members present.
“Remember that red is hate and blue is a reconciliation of love; racism is red and non-racialism is blue. Economic growth is blue; breaking everything down and calling for the murder of people is red,” Zille said.
DA leader John Steenhuisen also briefly addressed the congress and spoke mainly on the DA’s efforts to cobble together a coalition of opposition political parties ahead of next year’s election.
Steenhuisen said the moonshot pact was possible in Gauteng and cited DA polling which showed that the opposition combined could likely reach 48% of electoral support in the province. However, he did not provide broader details about the polling and who was ranked.
“That’s 2% short of a majority, and we haven’t had an election campaign yet,” said Steenhuisen.
The DA Gauteng congress will see contestation between current provincial leader Solly Msimanga and Member of the Gauteng Legislature Khume Ramulifho.
Ramulifho, in his address to delegates, said the 2024 election needs a DA that is ready and revived to push for an increase in the registration of disgruntled citizens who can help the party grow.
Msimanga told delegates that it would be ill-advised for them to change leadership months ahead of the 2024 election. He said his record since being elected in 2020 showed that he had salvaged the party from internal divisions.
“Judge me by the work I have done,” Msimanga said.
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