DA leader, John Steenhuisen is confident that he has the ability to lead the party towards the 2024 general elections.
Steenhuisen is hoping to secure a second term as leader of the official opposition at the party’s elective congress this weekend.
The DA will also make resolutions and chart the way forward for next year’s elections where it hopes to topple the ANC’s 50% majority.
Steenhuisen says he has been able to resuscitate the party after inheriting it from former leader, Mmusi Maimane.
Speaking to SABC News in an exclusive interview ahead of the DA’s congress, Steenhuisen says his experience makes him the better candidate.
Steenhuisen says he has been able to resuscitate the party after inheriting it from former leader, Mmusi Maimane, cementing the DA’s place as the official opposition in the country.
“Going into an important election, you need a leader who has got the experience of having served in all three spheres of government and a leader who inherited a party that was in a terrible state in 2019 and who has been able to, with teamwork, been able to pull that right again to the point where polling now shows we’re … behind the ANC in some instances. That would have been unimaginable in 2019 when people were writing the DA off. I think the DA is back in business and I think that’s been a very positive sign and I think it’s positive for the country. Nobody can talk about building the post ANC South Africa that doesn’t have the DA at the heart of it,” says Steenhuisen.
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Steenhuisen has not ruled out partnerships with other political parties in his quest to have the ANC dip below 50% in next year’s general elections.
He, however, says the parties must be in alignment with the official opposition’s core principles. This, as pundits predict that the 111-year old organisation may lose the majority support it has enjoyed since democracy. And as the DA heads to its Federal Congress this weekend, Steenhuisen says this remains the task of the party.
“We will work with people who share our values and principles. If you look at those four fundamentals that we always put on the table and you layer the EFF’s 7 pillars on top of those, they are incongruous in many instances and that is what has made a governing relationship with them incredibly difficult,” explained Steenhuisen.
The party will hold its elective conference this coming weekend.
