DA wants outright majority in Bay after 2021 municipal polls

The DA has its sights on winning Nelson Mandela Bay in the 2021 local government election with an outright majority.

Should the majority of voters put their faith in the DA, the party says, it would be able to deliver improved services as it would not be at the mercy of coalition partners.

“That is the prize, we don’t play for second place,” DA interim leader John Steenhuisen said on Tuesday.

Steenhuisen was speaking at an oversight visit on a farm outside Despatch where a servitude had been leaking for the past eight months unattended.

He said this highlighted an inept government that simply could not manage the water in the metro.

“Water protests have broken out in parts of Nelson Mandela Bay, but the best way to protest is to vote the ANC-led coalition of corruption out of government and put the DA back in government.

“Where the ANC disappoints, the DA delivers,” Steenhuisen said.

With former party member and Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba having launched his ActionSA party, which he wants to contest the 2021 municipal polls, some analysts have said it would get a lot of support.

This is because some heavyweights like former DA Gauteng leader John Moodey and ANC MP Makhosi Khoza have joined ActionSA.

Steenhuisen said Mashaba needed to register his political party with the IEC before any announcements.

The IEC recently rejected ActionSA’s application to register as a political party due to the similarity of its logo to the Party of Action and its logo’s use of the SA flag.

The party has challenged the ruling and says it will go to court if necessary.

“We’ve seen this with every election,” Steenhuisen said.

“Parties based on personalities come and go.

“The DA does what it always does — we stick to our programme of action — stick to our values and principles and we’re going to go out there to win an outright majority in Nelson Mandela Bay,” he said.

While focusing on the local government elections, Steenhuisen has also been criss-crossing SA, campaigning for the leader position.

He will go head-to-head with KwaZulu-Natal MPL Mbali Ntuli for the position which was left vacant when former leader Mmusi Maimane dumped the party in October 2019, saying it no longer represented one SA.

The party will elect new leaders from the end of the month to November 2 when the virtual elective congress is wrapped up.

On what he thought his chances of winning were, Steenhuisen said he had run a spirited campaign and had put his vision forward with nearly all delegates.

“I’ve made it clear from the beginning that I’m not running against anyone.

“I’m running for a set of ideas, a set of values which I think can take the party forward.

“I’m sure it can find fertile ground with the delegates so we can fix the DA and SA,” he said.

With the exit of former leaders such as Mashaba and more recently, Moodey, the DA has been perceived as a party fractured along racial lines, something Steenhuisen vehemently denied.

“I don’t think the DA has been fractured along racial lines.

“I think it’s an oversimplification of the process.

“If one looks across the fissures that have happened across the party, they transcend races.

“We’re a democratic organisation.

“I think we’ve been too long in the interim phase and that’s because of Covid-19.

“I think in that time, there has been some restlessness that’s set in.

“I think in a congress where there’s been a democratic outcome it is one that will be respected, he said.

Steenhuisen said the DA’s mission was to win back the trust of lost voters.

“The second thing is to attract voters who’ve never had trust in the DA before.

“Here I think particularly of the thousands of young people who’ve opted out of politics as a solution to their problems.

“We’ve got to position the DA as a party that is caring, as a party that cares for their issues and is talking all the time to issues that matter to voters and I think if we can do that by clearly setting up the alternative offer to the ANC rather being than being an alternate ANC, I think we’ll be able to rally a lot of people to the banner in this local government election,” he said.

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