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The 2019 Democratic Alliance Federal Council chairpersonship election was held on 20 October 2019 to elect the new Chairperson of the Federal Council of the Democratic Alliance (DA), after incumbent James Selfe had announced his retirement in June 2019. [2]
The members of the party's Federal Council elected the new chairperson. [3] Helen Zille was elected to the position. [4]
In June 2019, James Selfe announced his retirement from the post of Chairperson of the Federal Council of the DA. He served in the post for almost two decades under the leadership of Tony Leon, Helen Zille and Mmusi Maimane. The leadership position is similar to that of the role of Secretary-General of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). [5] [6] [7]
In recent months, the DA had been plagued by infighting and disorder. The party unsuccessfully tried to grow its vote share in the May 2019 national elections, only to be met with its first electoral decline in its history. This consequently caused leadership uncertainty within the party. [8] [9]
The candidate nomination process closed on 4 October 2019 at around 17:00. Four candidates declared their intention to contest the election and were as follow:
On 20 October 2019, DA Spokesperson Solly Malatsi tweeted that Helen Zille had been elected to the post. The party soon confirmed her election. [13]
The Democratic Alliance is a South African political party and the official opposition to the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The party is broadly centrist, and has been attributed both centre-left and centre-right policies. It is a member of Liberal International and the Africa Liberal Network. The DA traces its roots to the founding of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party in 1959, with many mergers and name changes between that time and the present. The DA ideologically shows a variety of liberal tendencies, including social liberalism, classical liberalism, and conservative liberalism.
Otta Helene Maree, known as Helen Zille, is a South African politician. She has served as the Chairperson of the Federal Council of the Democratic Alliance since 20 October 2019. From 2009 until 2019, she was the Premier of the Western Cape province for two five-year terms, and a member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament. She served as Federal Leader of the Democratic Alliance from 2007 to 2015 and as Mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009.
Mike Waters is a South African politician, and former Member of Parliament for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), where he served as the Opposition's Deputy Chief Whip from 2014 to 2019. He served as the Shadow Minister of Health from 2006 to 2012, and as the Shadow Minister of Social Development from 2012 to 2014.
James Selfe is a South African politician, a Member of Parliament for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), and the party's former Federal Council Chairperson. He was also the party's Shadow Minister of Correctional Services. Selfe resigned from Parliament and as the Shadow Minister of Correctional Services with effect from 31 December 2021.
Roland Athol Price Trollip is a South African politician and provincial chairman of ActionSA in the Eastern Cape. He was previously a member of the Democratic Alliance (DA), serving as the Federal Chairperson of the DA from 2015 to 2019 and the Executive Mayor of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, serving from 2016 until he was unseated in a vote of no confidence in 2018.
John Henry Steenhuisen is a South African politician who has served as the twentieth leader of the Opposition since October 2019 and has been the leader of the Democratic Alliance since November 2020, having served as the interim leader for one year from November 2019. He was chief whip of the official opposition from May 2014 until October 2019.
Mbali Ntuli is a South African politician and a former member of the Democratic Alliance. She is the former Provincial Campaigns Director for the party in KZN. She resigned as a member of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature in March 2022, where she served as the DA KZN Spokesperson on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA). She previously served as leader and Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance Youth. She was elected to this position in May 2013.
Jacobus Frederik "Jacques" Smalle is a South African politician who has served as a Democratic Alliance Member of the National Assembly of South Africa since 2023 and previously from 2010 to 2014. Smalle served as a member of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature twice from 2009 until 2010 and again from 2014 until 2023. Smalle is currently the Democratic Alliance's Limpopo provincial chairperson. He had previously served as the party's Limpopo provincial leader and as deputy federal chairperson of the party. He was the DA's Limpopo Premier candidate for the 2019 election.
Mmusi Aloysias Maimane is a South African politician, businessman, and leader of Build One South Africa, a political party. Maimane is also the former Leader of South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) political party from 10 May 2015 to 23 October 2019, and the former Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly of South Africa from 29 May 2014 to 24 October 2019. He is the former leader of the DA in the Johannesburg City Council and the DA National Spokesperson. In 2011, he was elected to be the DA's Johannesburg mayoral candidate in the 2011 municipal elections. In that election, Maimane helped to grow the party's voter base, but was not elected mayor. Thereafter he served as Leader of the Official Opposition on the Johannesburg City Council until May 2014. In addition to his political career, he is also a pastor and elder at Liberty Church. He formed the One South Africa Movement in 2020. Mmusi Maimane launched this new political party on 24 September 2022
The Democratic Alliance held its 6th Federal Congress in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape from 9 May to 10 May 2015. After incumbent leader Helen Zille announced she would not seek reelection, the Congress became focused on the contest to succeed her.
General elections were held in South Africa on 8 May 2019 to elect a new President, National Assembly and provincial legislatures in each province. These were the sixth elections held since the end of apartheid in 1994 and determined who would become the next President of South Africa.
The Shadow Cabinet of Mmusi Maimane was formed on 5 June 2014 in South Africa following his election as Parliamentary Leader of the Democratic Alliance and Leader of the Opposition on 29 May 2014. The Democratic Alliance parliamentary caucus also elected other caucus leadership. John Steenhuisen was elected Chief Whip with Anchen Dreyer as Caucus Chairperson. These elections all occurred following the 2014 general elections, in which the Democratic Alliance retained its post as the Official Opposition in the National Assembly of South Africa.
Ivan Henry Meyer is a South African politician who has been serving as the Western Cape Provincial Minister of Agriculture since 2019. He has held multiple positions in the provincial cabinet. Meyer was elected to the Western Cape Provincial Parliament in 2009. He has also been the Federal Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance (DA) since November 2020, a position he previously held in an acting capacity from November 2019 to November 2020. Meyer had served as the First Deputy Federal Chairperson of the DA from 2010 to 2012, and again from 2015 to 2019. He was also the provincial leader of the party in the Western Cape from 2012 to 2015.
Thomas Charles Ravenscroft Walters is a South African politician of the Democratic Alliance (DA) who has been serving as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa since May 2014. He served as a Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature from 2009 to 2014. In 2012, Walters was elected Deputy Federal Council Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance, and has been deputising Federal Council Chairperson Helen Zille since 2019. He deputised James Selfe from 2012 to 2019. Walters was the party's Shadow Minister and Shadow Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) announced on 20 March 2019 that a record number of 48 parties had registered candidates for the national parliamentary election. This is 19 more parties that contested the 2014 national elections. In the provincial legislature elections, the total number of parties registering candidates were:
The Democratic Alliance (DA) held its leadership conference virtually between 31 October and 1 November 2020. It was originally scheduled to be held in May 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The previous congress was held in 2018. In October 2019, then-party leader Mmusi Maimane announced that the party would seek to hold a policy conference and early elective congress in 2020. Maimane and former party chair Athol Trollip have since resigned from their positions and the DA. The party elected John Steenhuisen and Ivan Meyer as their interim successors, respectively.
Bongani Michael Baloyi is a South African politician. In 2013, he was elected Executive Mayor of the Midvaal Local Municipality. He was only 26 years old at the time, and he consequently became the youngest mayor in South Africa. From 2011 to 2013, he was the MMC for Development and Planning in the municipality.
Mathew John Cuthbert is a South African politician who served as the Shadow Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry from June 2019 until April 2023. A member of the Democratic Alliance, he was elected to the National Assembly in May 2019. Before that, Cuthbert served as a councillor in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality.
Thembisile Angel Khanyile is a South African politician who is a member of the National Assembly of South Africa representing the Democratic Alliance. She is currently the Shadow Minister of Home Affairs. Khanyile had previously served as the Shadow Deputy Minister of Home Affairs.
Douglas Harvey Monro Gibson is a South African retired attorney, politician and diplomat who served as South Africa's ambassador to Thailand between 2008 and 2012. Previously, he had served as chief whip of the opposition from 1999 to 2007, as chairperson of the federal council of the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2000, and as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa between 1994 and 2008.
Van der Walt said that the voters roll contained the names of around 150 or so delegates who would be voting on 20 October.
