The DA must become the official opposition in KZN in 2014
Note to Editors: This is an extract of a speech delivered by DA Leader Helen Zille at the DA's KwaZulu-Natal provincial congress, in Ladysmith, March 17 2012
It is a pleasure to speak at the Democratic Alliance's KwaZulu-Natal provincial congress today.
Anyone who has ever fought an election will tell you that the most unnerving part of the campaign is after the polls have closed while you wait for the results. In the IEC results centre in Pretoria last year, through the long night after Election Day, we waited for the results to flood in from voting stations around South Africa.
When eventually all of the ballots were counted, it was clear that the DA had achieved its best electoral result ever - 24% of the national vote, nearly one in four of all votes.
In KwaZulu-Natal, our results showed how much effort was put in to growing the party in all communities. We took eight (8) wards off the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, including Nkobongo, Shakaskraal and Stanger Manor -all previously considered safe ANC seats. We also tripled our support in Chatsworth. Altogether, we increased our support from 9% in 2006 to over 12% in 2011 - an increase of over 170 000 new DA voters.
But politics in this province is a strange beast. Nowhere else in the country is opposition power so dispersed. KwaZulu-Natal is the only province in South Africa where the ANC has gained support. And yet, nowhere else in the country do so many people vote for opposition parties. More people in KZN have already voted for a party other than the ANC than anywhere else in South Africa.
This gives us a window of opportunity which we must not allow to pass by. We cannot rest on the laurels of last year's success and sit down satisfied with our present positions. No way! We have to carry on working, and carry on building. Umsebenzi uqala manje!
So I have come to this congress today to issue you, the structures of the DA in this province, with a challenge - the DA must become the official opposition in KwaZulu-Natal in 2014.
I don't say this lightly. I've seen the results, and I know where we stand. But I also know that if we put our minds to it, and if we stop gazing inward, and if we carry on growing our support in communities that have never voted DA before - then we can do it.
A considerable number of voters will soon be looking for a new political home. The writing is on the wall. The rest of the opposition parties are weak. The Minority Front has sadly lost its patriarch, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has steadily lost support and is now in terminal decline and the National Freedom Party (NFP) has already become an ANC puppet. We must position ourselves to be this new political home.
The IFP has fallen from grace. Long gone are the days when it ruled KwaZulu-Natal. In 1994 it had 50% of the vote, by 2006 it had fallen to 35.5% and in 2009 it only had 20.5 % of the vote. In 2011 it was left with 15.5%. The trajectory is clear - in 2014 the IFP will lose still more of its support base, and the DA must work hard to ensure we welcome those voters into our fold.
Numerous IFP leaders have already joined the DA, including Dr Frank Mdlalose, who served as the first democratically elected Premier of KwaZulu-Natal. They have realised that the IFP has lost its way, ironically because if its inability to change with the times. Its leadership has become stale, and its strategy stagnate.
When the New Freedom Party split from the IFP in January 2011, it seemed to have the potential to be a realistic alternative the ANC in the province. Its leader, Ms Zanele Magwaza-Msibi - the former IFP Chairperson - proclaimed that the NFP would welcome any South African without a political home. And yet, it was not long before it entered into a coalition with the ANC in the 19 hung KZN municipalities after the election.
Like the NNP, the Freedom Front and others, the NFP will soon find out that voters do not take kindly to their wishes being ignored. It seems that when IFP leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, warned the electorate "that a vote for the NFP is a vote for the ANC" he was not far off the mark. The NFP will serve as a bridge for voters out of the IFP - the DA must be waiting on the other side of that bridge.
They say that it is difficult to campaign in Kwazulu-Natal, that there are no-go areas. Intimidation has never stopped us before. It won't stop us now. We will intensify our campaign to build party structures at grass roots level in every corner of KwaZulu-Natal and indeed South Africa. These structures are the foundation of our success, because they give us the opportunity to interact directly with people every day, and to speak to them about the kind of South Africa we all want.
I often say to President Zuma when I see him, "siyeza", the DA is coming. As always, he laughs a hearty laugh in return. But I know the ANC is nervous about the DA's success. Why else would Gwede Mantashe say to his own party that if they continue as they are now, South Africa will soon have a DA government? He doesn't know how right he is.
The DA is growing in KZN. In 2014, we want to be the official opposition in this province. Let's all roll up our sleeves and prepare for the hard work ahead. And let's send a clear message to the people of this province:
Siyeza, Premier Mkhize, we are coming!
Siyeza, Prince Buthelezi, we are coming!
Siyeza, the DA is coming!
Issued by the DA, March 17 2012
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
