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Democratic Alliance (DA)

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is the main opposition party in Parliament, and is also the ruling party in the Western Cape Province. DA promotes itself as a party for all people, and there is no other party with as much ethnic diversity in its caucus as the DA. They were long seen as a party of big business dominated by white people, but the election of Mmusi Maimane as its first black leader after the 2014 elections could draw votes especially from middle-class blacks.

In the April 2009 election, COPE (the second largest opposition party) took the 6.5 percent of the vote that the DA was expecting to receive due to racial identity problems. COPE is a breakaway party from the ANC and has a largely black membership, whereas the DA's electoral base is mostly from the white and mixed race communities.

The DA made no secret of its campaign strategy for the 2009 election -- put party leader, and Cape Town mayor, Helen Zille out front. The country's strongest opposition was seeking to build on its 2004 election results of 50 seats (12 percent of the vote), and its strategy is to win Western Cape and then build a strong record of service delivery to win key metropolitan areas in 2011. The party claimed to be the "trusted hand" in coalitions and would be open to working with other parties; however, they so far have made no move to align themselves. Zille consistently told reporters that the DA wants to see how it can do at the polls before committing itself to alliances with other parties. The DA is happy to work with COPE in a coalition, but would not align themselves with the ANC "because the whole purpose of forming a coalition is to increase democracy by decreasing the ANC's power."

Although the DA looked well-positioned to build off of its 2004 and 2006 election performances in Western Cape, it may have had difficulty carrying its message forward in other provinces and outside of urban centers for two reasons. First, the decision by Zille to stand as the party's premier candidate -- giving up her seat as Cape Town mayor -- meant that there will be essentially two centers of power in the party. Although Zille was the face of the party's campaign, most pundits and political analysts saw the election as also being about whether the DA's efforts to restructure and bring in new voters -- non-white voters -- had been successful.

By-election results in Cape Town suggested that the DA has been somewhat successful tapping into non-white areas, but so far this did not seem to have translated to Johannesburg, Pretoria, or Durban. Interestingly, it remained hard to predict where Indian and colored voters' support would fall countrywide in this election.

The popular perception that the DA is a "white party" undermines its effort to diversify its support base and the ANC opportunistically emphasizes this distinction with claims that the DA wishes to return South Africa to the past of white minority rule.

The Democratic Alliance was formed on the 24th of June 2000, when the then Democratic Party and the New National Party signed an outline agreement to establish the party. But the history of the Democratic Alliance goes back to 1959, when a number of liberal members of the United Party broke away to form the Progressive Party (PP). Dr Jan Steytler, a former Cape leader of the United Party, was elected the first leader of the new party. He continued as party leader until his retirement in December 1970. The PP opposed apartheid and took its stand on constitutional reform, calling for an entrenched constitution in which the powers of the provinces or federal states would be constitutionally protected. It stood, too, for an economy based on free enterprise.

The Democratic Alliance is the result of many parties and movements coming together over the years and coalescing around the vision of an open opportunity society for all South Africans. It has counted among its leaders prominent anti-apartheid activists such as Helen Suzman, Colin Eglin, Harry Schwarz and Frederik van Zyl Slabbert.

In 1959 a number of liberal members of the United Party broke away after the United Party voted against returning land to the black majority. The breakaway members formed the Progressive Party. Dr Jan Steytler, a former Cape leader of the United Party, was elected the first leader of the new party. He continued as party leader until his retirement in December 1970. The PP opposed apartheid and took its stand on constitutional reform, calling for an entrenched constitution in which the powers of the provinces or federal states would be constitutionally protected. It stood, too, for an economy based on free enterprise.

In the 1961 election, only Mrs Helen Suzman managed to retain her seat in Parliament. Thus began one of the great parliamentary careers of all time. Mrs Suzman sat alone for 13 years, the sole principled opponent of racial discrimination in the whole South African Parliament. She fought against detention without trial; pass laws; influx control; job reservation on the grounds of colour; racially separated amenities; Group Areas; and forced removals. She demanded trade union rights for all and fought for better wages and working conditions. She visited prisons and obtained better conditions for prisoners.

In 1974, six more PP members won seats in Parliament. Soon after this the Progressives merged with the Reform Party (another breakaway from the UP) to form the Progressive Reform Party (PRP). In 1977, the UP merged with another small party to form the New Republic Party, at which point further UP members left to form the Committee for a United Opposition, which then joined the PRP to form the Progressive Federal Party (PFP). After the 1977 election, the PFP became the official opposition under the leadership of Colin Eglin.

In 1982, the Conservative Party (CP) broke away from the ruling National Party over the constitutional proposals which formed the basis of the tricameral constitution introduced by Prime Minister P.W. Botha in 1983. The PFP strongly opposed this constitution on the grounds that it excluded black people and gave the newly created office of the State President too much power.

The PFP lost a number of Parliamentary seats in the 1987 election, which was contested under the cloud of the State of Emergency, and the CP became the official opposition. In 1988, Zach de Beer became leader of the PFP and continued the negotiations which culminated in the Independent Party, National Democratic Movement and Progressive Federal Party merging to form the Democratic Party on the 8th of April 1989. In the National Party, De Klerk had taken over from PW Botha as leader, and so the National Party called an election for September. Under the combined leadership of Zach de Beer, Denis Worrall and Wynand Malan, the DP won 34 seats in Parliament in the general election. The NP also lost seats to the right-wing Conservative Party and the loss of support enabled the NP leader, F W de Klerk, to announce a radical change in government policy on 2 February 1990. The dismantling of apartheid had begun.

With the unbanning of the ANC, PAC and other liberation organisations, and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, the process of negotiations for political change in South Africa began. Democratic Party leader Zach de Beer was chosen as the first Management Committee Chairman of CODESA (Convention on a Democratic South Africa). In CODESA, and the subsequent Multi-Party Negotiating Process, the DP played a vital role in the negotiation of an Interim Constitution, which included most of the principles and ideals around which the PP was formed in 1959.

In the first post-apartheid election in 1994, the DP won only 1.7% of the vote at national level. Under the leadership of Tony Leon, the DP began a new fight: for the legitimacy of opposition in a democratic South Africa. The 1995 municipal elections marked the beginning of long, steady growth in DP support in South Africa. In the 1999 general elections, the DP increased to a 9% share of the national vote and returned 45 members to Parliament. The DP overtook the National Party, becoming the largest opposition party in the country.

The DP decided that the best way to protect and strengthen democracy in South Africa was to build a strong opposition able to restrict the one-party dominance of the ANC. In 2000, the DP reached a merger agreement with the Federal Alliance and the New National Party (NNP). The Democratic Alliance was formed. In the December 2000 municipal elections, the DA won a number of municipalities, including the Cape Town Metro. The relationship between the former DP and NNP within the DA was an uneasy one. It broke down towards the end of 2001 when the NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk took the NNP into an alliance with the ANC.

In the 2004 general election, the DA built on the gains of the DP five years previously, gaining 12.3% of the vote and 50 seats in the National Assembly. The party grew its support in eight out of nine provinces and marked an increase of over 400 000 votes, despite 114 000 fewer votes being cast in the election. The election confirmed the DA’s status as the most popular opposition party, the fastest growing party overall, and the only viable alternative to the ANC.

The DA increased its national share of the vote by a further 4% in the 2006 local government elections – from 12.3% in 2004 to 16.3%. The party gained more representatives in all six of the metropolitan councils, most notably in the Cape Town Metro where the DA increased its share of the vote from 27.1% in 2004 to 41.9%, making the DA the largest party in Cape Town (ANC: 38%). On March 15 2006, Helen Zille – up until that point a DA MP and the party’s national spokesperson – was elected Mayor in a nail-biting contest. She obtained a 2-vote majority which enabled the DA to form a governing coalition of seven parties.

The formation of a DA-led multiparty government in Cape Town initiated a process of political realignment that has seen opposition parties coalesce around core common values rooted in the Constitution. The coalition government in Cape Town initially had a tenuous grip on power, but it became more solid once the Independent Democrats joined. Despite the ANC’s repeated attempts to unseat it, the coalition worked well.

On 26 November 2006, Tony Leon announced that he would not accept nomination for the leadership of the party at the party's Congress in May 2007. At that Congress, Helen Zille was elected the new leader of the DA. In 2008, Helen Zille was awarded the title of World Mayor of the Year.

In November 2008, the DA was re-launched as a party of government that delivers for all. It was accompanied by a new logo to symbolise the DA’s diversity. This re-positioning found favour with voters in the 2009 elections which saw the DA win 16,7% of the national vote and 67 seats in the National Assembly. The DA won the Western Cape with an outright majority of 51,5% of the provincial vote.

Despite the DA’s growth in the last few elections – 12.4 percent of the vote in 2004, 16.7 percent in 2009 and 22.2 percent in 2014 – the party is still considered “too white” to threaten the supremacy of the ruling ANC.

Te Democratic Alliance (DA), has elected its first black leader on May 11, 2015. Mmusi Maimane took over from Helen Zille, who had been at the helm of the party for eight years. At 34 years of age, the charismatic politician known for his sharp oratory skills and slick campaigns is often dubbed the “Obama of Soweto." Maimane's appointment as the new leader DA party could help shift a political landscape that currently tilts heavily in favor of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party.