Outgoing DA Federal Council chairperson Helen Zille says South African is on a different political trajectory because of the blue party.
Zille was delivering her last official address as chair at the party’s Federal Congress at Gallagher Estate in Midrand on Saturday.
“Historians will one day ask this question: ‘how did South Africa, of all countries, chart a different course?’ And the answer will be this — the Democratic Alliance, you,” said Zille to loud applause from more than 2,000 delegates.
“We have taken on two powerful racial nationalist traditions in our history. We defeated one of them at the end of the 20th century. We have prevented another from dominating our new landscape, acting as a powerful break in the trend in liberated countries for the liberators to become the oppressors.
We have built one of the largest, proudest and most resilient liberal movements in the world and we did it in one of the most hostile environments imaginable to liberal politics.
— Helen Zille
“And we have done this in an era when much of the world is beating an alarming retreat from liberal principles and the moderate, rules-based order itself, is under threat. There is no shortage of parties in our country that want to pull us in that same direction.”
Zille, who is stepping down as Federal Council chairperson to focus on her campaign to become the next mayor of Johannesburg, told party delegates that the local government elections due to take place later this year will be hotly contested.
She said she expected “hundreds of parties” to be on the ballot paper.
“Many will seek to weaponise our diversity and to divide South Africans along racial lines. We reject that path. We are the party of inclusion, not division. We call ourselves the blue people. Not black, not white, not brown, but blue. Blue people distinguish themselves by their shared values.”
Zille added that the 26-year-old party has grown to be one of the biggest liberal movements in the world.
“We have built one of the largest, proudest and most resilient liberal movements in the world and we did it in one of the most hostile environments imaginable to liberal politics.
“And now we are on course to become the largest party in South Africa’s metros at the end this year. And from there, we move to the next milestone, becoming South Africa’s biggest party…woza 2029 woza,” said Zille in reference to the next national elections due to take place in 2029.
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