Cape Town - Patricia de Lille was elected DA Western Cape leader at the party’s provincial congress in Cape Town on Saturday, beating sole challenger Lennit Max.
De Lille received 69 percent of the vote, while Max obtained 31 percent.
De Lille, 64, took over the provincial leadership of the party from Ivan Meyer, who did not stand for re-election. She said she would continue to serve as mayor of Cape Town.
She took to the stage at 4.30pm on Saturday, with Tina Turner’s Simply the Best blasting from speakers and with confetti being thrown into the air.
She danced and embraced the 10 colleagues who make up the leadership of the DA in the Western Cape.
The provincial congress, held every three years, took place in the massive hall of His People Centre in Goodwood.
Bonginkosi Madikizela was elected deputy leader, leading to shouts of joy from his supporters. Madikizela is the MEC for housing in the provincial legislature.
“I am very humbled by the confidence you showed in me,” said De Lille, who has served as mayor of Cape Town since 2011.
“The Western Cape is the heartland of the DA and it is going to stay like that.”
To campaign for the position, De Lille travelled thousands of kilometres throughout the province.
She said her first action after being re-elected leader would be to call a meeting with her leadership to discuss a plan of action for the municipal elections next year.
She added she would again stand as mayor of Cape Town in 2016.
Speaking in Afrikaans and English, she said in the next six months she and the newly elected leadership would visit regions throughout the province. “It is our duty as leaders to be accessible, to be responsible,” she said.
De Lille said the party would focus on winning back municipalities in the province that are currently governed by the ANC in the 2016 municipal elections. “We cannot rest until every municipality in the province is under the control of the DA,” she said.
Like other DA speakers, De Lille praised Helen Zille, saying that for “nearly a decade Helen has done more than anyone else in this country to realign opposition politics”.
She also paid tribute to Meyer, her predecessor, saying that when she told him she was running for DA provincial leader he had told her that he would stand back.
Voting started at 10.30am and ended an hour later, with more than 1 000 delegates from throughout the province voting for 10 leadership positions.
Delegates consisted of the province’s provincial executive committee, Western Cape members of parliament, DA councillors, members of the provincial legislature, the chairpersons of the party’s 377 valid branches in the province and 320 delegates elected by branches. The results were announced at 4pm.
Meyer, the outgoing DA provincial leader, announced on Saturday that he would be standing for the position of deputy federal chairperson at the DA’s federal conference next month.
Meyer said he wanted to be part of the team that “takes the Democratic Alliance into the Union Buildings”.
Elected DA provincial leader in 2012, he said he had achieved his mandate of increasing the party’s support, as the DA won just under 60 percent of the Western Cape vote in last year’s general election.
He added that the Western Cape DA-led government was the “only functional provincial government in South Africa” and the province could boast the country’s best basic service delivery record.
In a major boost for Mmusi Maimane, who announced his candidacy for the position of national DA leader on Saturday, De Lille announced she would be backing him at the DA national congress in Port Elizabeth next month.
All 10 newly elected leaders, and the three chairpersons of the party’s constituencies, raised their hands when asked whether they would support Maimane for leadership of the DA.
Weekend Argus