The Democratic Alliance is hailing what it calls a “wave of political defections” that has begun from the ANC to the DA in the Western Cape.
It comes after the party on Wednesday announced that several senior ANC Western Cape officials and Councillors have walked over to the DA, which the Party’s Federal Council Chairperson, Helen Zille, says is a process that will gather momentum in the months ahead, claiming that many other officials in the ANC feel the same way.
Members leaving the ANC include the Western Cape Provincial Secretary, Neville Delport, and two sitting Ward Councillors, from Swellendam and Cederberg.
“This is a milestone moment, and it mirrors the swing in support by South African voters who continue to abandon the ANC to support the DA. This is an example of the realignment of politics in South Africa.”
Zille says the ANC’s support is in decline across South Africa, and in the Western Cape, it is in terminal decline.
“In contrast, DA support continues to grow and momentum is building behind the DA’s offer to reform South Africa’s economy, grow jobs for all and replace BEE.”
The ANC in the Western Cape reacted to the walk-overs, calling it a political stunt.
“The African National Congress (ANC) in the Western Cape has noted the desperate and shameful attempts by the DA to hang on to relevancy in a province that has grown tired and disillusioned with their façade of good governance, which is a catch phrase to hide behind a shoestring of their blatant racism.”
The party, which hasn’t controlled the Western Cape since 2009, says this is a “last gasp” attempt by the DA, which they say is desperate for survival.
“Recent uprisings in the Cape Metro, where community members in their tens of thousands, organised under the banner of the ANC, have left the DA completely spooked at the realisation that they are about to lose the Cape Metro.”
The statement goes on to accuse the DA of misrule in the Western Cape, and that they have now turned to the ANC to try and save its dwindling popularity.
“It hopes that, in the same ANC it has consistently falsely accused of not having quality leaders, it would change its fortunes. It’s a pity that once again, its fishing rod has attracted defects and by-products from the rubble that the renewal process has chinned out.”
The defections are thought to be linked to unhappiness over the recent announcement by the ANC that it was reconfiguring the Western Cape’s leadership structure, in a bid to regain influence ahead of next year’s Local Government Elections.
The Former South African Ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rassool, was appointed as the new convener of the ANC in the province.
But the party says the “renewal process” was always going to separate opportunists and political adventurists from “real revolutionaries”.
“What the DA has attracted is gross underachievers who have been doing the DA’s own bidding internally.”
