{"id":49358,"date":"2023-06-05T21:29:33","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T21:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/da-joburg-caucus-gets-new-leader-as-party-gears-up-for-a-regional-leadership-battle"},"modified":"2023-06-05T22:50:52","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T22:50:52","slug":"da-joburg-caucus-gets-new-leader-as-party-gears-up-for-a-regional-leadership-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/da-joburg-caucus-gets-new-leader-as-party-gears-up-for-a-regional-leadership-battle","title":{"rendered":"DA Joburg caucus gets new leader as party gears-up for a regional leadership battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku was appointed the new leader of the DA&#8217;s Joburg council caucus after her closest competitor, Mpho Phalatse, pulled out of the race at the last minute.<\/p>\n<p>Kayser-Echeozonjoku&#8217;s election was made easy when Phalatse, the former Joburg mayor, dropped out of the race at the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Some DA members saw Phalatse&#8217;s withdrawal as her signalling her intention to contest the provincial leadership position against reigning leader Solly Msimanga at the provincial conference, which is expected to take place in August.<\/p>\n<p>Kayser-Echeozonjoku is a councillor for Ward 74.<\/p>\n<p>The DA Joburg caucus has faced a politically testing period since the 2021 municipal elections.<\/p>\n<p>The party has had to contend with running the city while dealing with several motions of no confidence brought against Phalatse while she was mayor.<\/p>\n<p>The party has also had to deal with negotiations for coalitions with its fellow Joburg council members, who have sometimes disagreed with the DA&#8217;s decisions.<\/p>\n<p>The most contentious of these decisions was whether the party should work with the EFF and the Patriotic Alliance.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the DA national leadership placed the regional structure under administration in May 2022 due to concerns over the party&#8217;s performance in the municipal elections.<\/p>\n<p>The DA Joburg region faces tough competition from new entrant ActionSA, which many electioneering monitoring experts believe has eaten into the party&#8217;s support base in the metro.<\/p>\n<p>ActionSA continues to be a threat against the DA, with the party facing fierce competition in by-elections held in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Walters, a DA MP, was appointed administrator of the Joburg region, and was expected to take the party&#8217;s political leaders at the branch level to task on improving their political performance.<\/p>\n<p>Walters told News24 that the Joburg region was out of administration and headed towards electing its regional leadership.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People know what they need to do politically in the region. We have now put measures in place to solve disputes and [we&#8217;ve] created a war room. I don&#8217;t think we should see the DA as having had a bad election in 2021. But we felt Joburg, given its strategic importance, we need to do better,&#8221; Walters said.<\/p>\n<p>Kayser-Echeozonjoku is expected to contest with three other candidates for Johannesburg&#8217;s regional leadership.<\/p>\n<p>DA Joburg members said that Phalatse has also been spoken about as a possible candidate.<\/p>\n<p>Other candidates include Darran Bergman, who serves as a Member of Parliament, and Nicola du Plessis, a member of the Gauteng provincial legislature.<\/p>\n<p>The Joburg regional election general meeting is expected to take place in July.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\">South-Africa<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku was appointed the new leader of the DA&#8217;s Joburg council caucus after her closest competitor, Mpho Phalatse, pulled out of the race at the last minute. Kayser-Echeozonjoku&#8217;s election was made easy when Phalatse, the former Joburg mayor, dropped out of the race at the weekend. Some DA members saw Phalatse&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":49357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[274,315,5413,316,309,310,486,2483,288,275],"class_list":["post-49358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-parties","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-belinda-kayser-echeozonjoku","tag-da","tag-gauteng","tag-johannesburg","tag-mpho-phalatse","tag-political-parties","tag-politics","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>DA Joburg caucus gets new leader as party gears-up for a regional leadership battle - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Belinda 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