Johannesburg - Gauteng DA leader John Moodey has indicated that he would not allow himself to be bullied or undermined within the party should he succeed in his campaign bid to be elected the new federal leader of the DA.
This comes as the party prepares for its special elective federal congress in May, where Moodey is going up against current interim leader John Steenhuisen and former DA youth leader Mbali Ntuli.
With differences over race and redress having plunged the party into instability recently, Steenhuisen and Ntuli’s candidatures were seen to be going to split the DA’s vote along racial and diversity lines.
Moodey said he had chosen to throw his hat in the ring as he believed that he was the one who was best positioned to take the party forward.
The position was left vacant by former DA leader Mmusi Maimane last year, then a close ally of Moodey.
“I believe that I am the best candidate. I am the workable alternative. My life experience speaks for itself. My mother was a white Afrikaner woman and my father the son of an Indian man and a coloured woman. My family is the new South Africa,” Moodey said.
Steenhuisen, viewed as the frontrunner, is enjoying close ties with chairperson of the federal council Helen Zille who is viewed to be powerful and the de facto leader of the party.
Moodey said he would not have a problem with working with Zille as long as she respected him as the party’s leader.
“I can work with anybody as long as they respect me and if and when I become the leader of the party, believe you me, I will be the leader,” he said.
He said his family experiences of discrimination during apartheid and his previous work with civil society and trade unions and within government as an official had also given him an advantage and insight that made him better than the other contenders to lead the DA to the right path.
“I have been able through numerous life experiences, to meet interesting people from all races and all cultures, and from all walks of life, and from the very shebeens of the townships to the boardrooms of Sandton. Through this on-going experience of transition, I am able to interact and communicate with anyone,” he said.
Moodey said he had also accumulated experiment experience within the DA during his 22 years with the party, adding that he was not jumped up the ranks.
“I have served at various levels of its structures. I have been a branch chairman, a deputy regional chairman and I have held the office of the Gauteng provincial chairman and subsequently as Gauteng provincial leader for a total of four terms. I was not parachuted,” he said to applause.