DURBAN - The DA revealed that it was readying itself to swoop on the ANC’s position as the ruling party in the 2019 general election as the ANC currently sat below 50% in the DA’s internal polling data.
Mmusi Maimane, DA leader, speaking to the media on Sunday following the party’s two-day Federal Council in Durban, said the party had resolved - over the next 700 days before the general election - to form a national government to usurp the ANC in 2019.
He said the ANC was showing signs of decline as the ruling party was sitting below 50% and the DA wanted to “continue our work of ensuring that South Africa is rescued from this Gupta-sponsored ANC that we are seeing”.
“To this effect, we believe that the DA is the only alternative. We will not allow this country to be stolen by a few.
“We want to serve the people of this country and we will spend the next 700 days
working toward this,” Maimane said.
He said the party had set goals and targets on the road to 2019 and he believed the DA would achieve those goals.
On the case against Premier Helen Zille, Maimane said it did not matter what level in the organisation a person
was, everybody would be held accountable.
“The Western Cape runs the best government in the country and ultimately, unlike many other political parties, when people do something in the organisation they are held to account,” Maimane said.
He said it had become clear at the Federal Council that the decision taken on Zille was welcomed by all the delegates.
“The organisation is focused on going toward 2019, we took strong decisive action in this regard. We have to make sure we continue delivering for the citizens,” Maimane said.
“The crucial focus of the DA is to take this moment, where we can see the ANC is sitting below 50%, and we work toward ensuring that we can live in a post ANC South Africa.”
Maimane said that while others were stealing and looting money, “sponsoring our country to the Guptas”, the DA would not sit back and allow that to continue.
“It becomes crucial that we chart a way where all South Africans, black and white, can contribute not only to a reconciled South Africa, but a South Africa that sees change in 2019 that we build an economy that’s inclusive and has more people able to find work. I think that became an important point to take the DA in the direction we need to,” he said.
He said the secret ballot judgment, heard at the Constitutional Court last week, was a “significant victory for the constitution of South Africa”.
“It made it very clear that there is the doctrine of the separation of power, it gave powers, correctly so, to the national assembly to be able to decide on what happens in the secret ballot.
“We, as a party, have always maintained that whether it be by secret ballot or open ballot we will vote to have Jacob Zuma removed.”
Whether Speaker Baleka Mbete exercised the powers given to her, he said, remained her own decision, but Maimane suspected the ANC would
not stop protecting the president.
Maimane added that under his party’s leadership, 80% of Western Cape municipalities received clean audits with KwaZulu-Natal in a distant second with just 18%.