Cape Town - Patricia de Lille will launch an extensive door-to-door campaign leading up to next year’s local government elections in her role as provincial leader of the DA.
De Lille told the Cape Times on Sunday that her main aim was to secure the support of “the people” as she seeks to win back all ANC-governed municipalities.
The city mayor was elected as the party’s new provincial leader at the provincial congress on Saturday, replacing Ivan Meyer after beating sole challenger Lennit Max. Meyer did not stand for re-election.
De Lille received 69 percent of the vote and Max 31 percent. Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela was elected deputy provincial leader.
De Lille expressed her delight on Sunday, saying the victory had come with “lots of hard work” as she campaigned for the position throughout the province.
“I am really humbled by the overwhelming support I received in the province. Now the hard work begins.”
De Lille said her campaign to win all the municipalities in the province would be focused around activism and going door to door.
“For the elections, the aim is to win all the municipalities in the province. We had seven municipalities receiving clean audits in our last campaign, so this shows the kind of work we have been doing.”
In the next six months, she and the newly elected leadership would focus on visiting throughout the province, especially rural areas.
“I want to bring back activism to increase the support base and go door to door in every township and community. The time has come to tell the voters what the DA can do.”
She would not be taking voters for granted and would develop programmes for core supporters. “We will then use the core support base to assist us in winning more support to increase our voters,” she said.
ANC provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile said the party was not threatened by De Lille’s strategy.
“Zille was a much stronger leader and while we welcome De Lille’s election, unless she changes the DA’s policy of exclusion and protection of white interests, this will just be an opportunity for us to further expose the DA’s weakness.
“The ANC is gaining ground in the province and we are not threatened by De Lille,” he said.
De Lille said she would be backing DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane at the party’s national congress in Port Elizabeth next month.
Cape Times