Veliswa Mvenya - 'Why I quit the DA'

More than a month after she shocked the province by resigning from the DA, former MPL Veliswa Mvenya has finally broken her silence and revealed her reasons for leaving the party.

Speaking on Umhlobo Wenene FM this morning, Mvenya said during the months leading to her resignation she had been frustrated, and accused Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip of giving her the nickname  “stupid woman”.

“My name in PE is ‘stupid woman’ and everyone was told to distance themselves from me because I was also labelled mediocre.

“Children who had just come into the DA were calling me mediocre without even questioning it. My third name was ‘gatekeeper’... All these names came from him [Athol Trollip],” she said.

Mvenya said she was isolated by the DA leading up to the party’s federal congress, and did not even have DA t-shirts.

“I did not have money to campaign, I didn’t even have money, not even a leader from the party came to speak at one of my rallies ... I was fighting for my space and that put me in a lot of trouble.

“I felt it, I was frustrated and I couldn’t handle it any more because I was not making a break-through within the party,” she said.

She said the remarks made by EFF leader Julius Malema that the DA revolved around one man, Trollip, were true and wherever Trollip moved within the province, the DA’s base would be where he was.

“When Trollip was in East London, so was the DA. People who were outside were unhappy,” she said.

“When he moved to Port Alfred, the party also moved there and now that he’s in Port Elizabeth, the base is also there and everything is done from PE,” she said.

Currently taking a break from politics, Mvenya said she was still looking at which party she would  join.

“If there were any parties I would join, it would either be the ANC or the EFF,” she said.

She said the reason she had decided to go on leave was because she was tired of always having her guard up and she found herself with enemies she did not know she had.

“The problem is that I know my rights, I know that freedom is earned and not guaranteed.

“I am a free thinker who says what she thinks and unfortunately the Democratic Alliance is a one-man show and if you want to be happy there you need to make sure that this one man is happy and if he’s not, you won’t be happy,” she said.

Taking to Twitter, Trollip labelled the claims “nonsense” and said never once did he say or imply that Mvenya was  a stupid woman. 

He tweeted: “She was my protégé and friend, then got involved with people who misled and confused her.”

HeraldLIVE understands that the mayor is currently travelling overseas and will be back in three weeks.

DA provincial leader Nqaba Bhanga said Trollip was a very mature and respectful politician and would never say the things Mvenya had accused him of.

Bhanga said he understood that when people left political organisations, they often threw stones at them and that Mvenya wanted to taint the name of the DA and Trollip.

“Our position is that Mvenya sent us a letter that she was resigning and she appreciated the DA and the support she had received from it in the past 18 years she had been with the party.

“What she said this morning contradicts everything because the 18 years she had been with the DA she was under the leadership of Athol Trollip, and she was given support by him,” he said.

He said he disputed Mvenya’s claims that people who looked like him were being used and that if you were black in the DA, your voice would not be heard.

“I am the leader of the DA in the province and Athol accounts to me, the mayor of Kouga Local Municipality accounts to me, when there are changes in cabinet they have to come through me and therefor what she’s saying is not true,” he said.