2015 Democratic Alliance Federal Congress
The Democratic Alliance held its 6th Federal Congress in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape from 9 May to 10 May 2015. After incumbent leader Helen Zille announced she would not seek reelection, the Congress became focused on the contest to succeed her. Election for Party Leader Helen Zille announced on 12 April 2015 that she would not run for re-election to another term as leader of the party. She said that she would remain as Premier of the Western Cape until her term expires in 2019. Many senior Democratic Alliance politicians names were touted as possible successors to Zille, such as Member of Parliament David Maynier, Parliamentary Leader Mmusi Maimane, Federal Chairperson Wilmot James, National Assembly Chief Whip John Steenhuisen, Gauteng Provincial Leader John Moodey, Eastern Cape Provincial leader Athol Trollip, Deputy Federal Chairperson Makashule Gana, Mayor of Cape Town Patricia de Lille and former Parliamentary Leader Lindiwe Mazibuko. When the nominations dead ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Democratic Alliance (South Africa)
The Democratic Alliance (, DA) is a South African list of political parties in South Africa, political party and the official opposition to the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The party is broadly centrism, centrist, and has been attributed both centre-left and centre-right policies. It is a member of Liberal International and the Africa Liberal Network. The DA traces its roots to the founding of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party (South Africa), Progressive Party in 1959, with many mergers and name changes between that time and the present. The DA ideologically shows a variety of liberal tendencies, including social liberalism, classical liberalism, and conservative liberalism. The current leader of the party is John Steenhuisen, who was announced as the new leader on 1 November 2020 after the party's 2020 Democratic Alliance Federal Congress, Federal Congress. He had previously acted as the interim leader of the party from November 2019 to November 2020. Helen Zille is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Patricia De Lille
Patricia de Lille (née Lindt; born 17 February 1951) is a South African politician who is the current Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure and leader of the political party Good. She was previously Mayor of Cape Town from 2011 to 2018, and Western Cape Provincial Minister of Social Development from 2010 to 2011. She founded and led the Independent Democrats (ID), a political party which she formed in 2003 during a floor-crossing window, after she broke away from the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). In August 2010, the ID merged with the Democratic Alliance, South Africa's official opposition, and the party was officially dissolved in 2014. From 2015 to 2017, she was Provincial Leader of the Democratic Alliance in the Western Cape. De Lille was selected as the DA's mayoral candidate in Cape Town, defeating incumbent Dan Plato, ahead of the 2011 local government elections, where she was elected mayor. She was re-elected to a second term as mayor in the 2016 local gover ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Politics Of South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a unitary parliamentary democratic republic. The President of South Africa serves both as head of state and as head of government. The President is elected by the National Assembly (the lower house of the South African Parliament) and must retain the confidence of the Assembly in order to remain in office. South Africans also elect provincial legislatures which govern each of the country's nine provinces. Since the end of apartheid in 1994 the African National Congress (ANC) has dominated South Africa's politics. The ANC is the ruling party in the national legislature, as well as in eight of the nine provinces (Western Cape is governed by the Democratic Alliance). The ANC received 57.50% of the vote during the 2019 general election. It had received 62.9% of the popular vote in the 2011 municipal election. The main challenger to the ANC's rule is the Democratic Alliance, led by John Steenhuisen (previously by Mmusi Maimane), which received ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Désirée Van Der Walt
Désirée van der Walt (born 20 April 1956) is a South African politician who has been a member of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature since 2023, previously serving in the provincial legislature from 2010 to 2014. She was a member of the National Assembly of South Africa twice, serving from 2004 until 2010 and again from 2014 until 2023. She is a member of the Democratic Alliance. Early life Désirée van der Walt was born in Pietersburg in what was then the Transvaal Province. She is the eldest of four children. Her father died while she was a young child. She had the aspirations to become an educator, but could not due to financial constraints. She was then employed by a banking institution. She later married and gave birth to two daughters. Van der Walt briefly worked for the National Department of Education. Political career Van der Walt was elected to the Roodepoort City Council in 1995 and served until 2000. She was elected as a Tzaneen Municipality councillor in 200 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Refiloe Nt'sekhe
Refiloe Nt'sekhe (born 28 April 1977) is a South African politician who serves as a Deputy Federal Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance (DA). She was elected to the position at the 2015 Federal Congress. Nt'sekhe was elected as a Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature in the 2014 general election. She was also one of two national spokespeople of the DA from 2015 to 2020. Early life and career Nt'sekhe was born on 28 April 1977. She obtained a degree in politics and philosophy at the University of Cape Town. She later achieved a post-graduate degree in marketing from the same university. During her student years in the 1990s, she became a member of the South African Liberal Students Association (SALSA). She joined the DA in 2001. Nt'sekhe worked for the Foschini Group, Capespan, South African Airways, Absa Group Limited and the South African Broadcasting Corporation, before becoming active in politics. Political career In 2009, she was appointed the DA's national ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ivan Meyer
Ivan Henry Meyer (born 28 March 1962) is a South African politician who has been serving as the Western Cape Provincial Minister of Agriculture since 2019. He has held multiple positions in the provincial cabinet. Meyer was elected to the Western Cape Provincial Parliament in 2009. He has also been the Federal Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance (DA) since November 2020, a position he previously held in an acting capacity from November 2019 to November 2020. Meyer had served as the First Deputy Federal Chairperson of the DA from 2010 to 2012, and again from 2015 to 2019. He was also the provincial leader of the party in the Western Cape from 2012 to 2015. Career Meyer served as the chief director of Provincial Training in the Corporate Services Directorate of the Western Cape Provincial Administration. He was a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Local Governance at the University of Stellenbosch. He has also published various works in the fields of education, housing, loc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Selfe
James Selfe (born 23 August 1955) is a South African politician, a Member of Parliament for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), and the party's former Federal Council Chairperson. He is also the party's Shadow Minister of Correctional Services. Selfe resigned from Parliament and as the Shadow Minister of Correctional Services with effect from 31 December 2021. Education and early career Selfe was born in Pretoria, and attended Bishops (Diocesan College) and the University of Cape Town. After earning a master's degree, Selfe worked between 1979 and 1988 as a researcher for the Progressive Federal Party, the forerunner to today's Democratic Alliance. He became the party's communications director in 1988, and a member of the President's Council a year later. In 1992 he became an executive director of the party. Parliamentary career Selfe was elected to the Senate - later National Council of Provinces - in 1994 and participated in the Constitutional Assembly which drew up ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Masizole Mnqasela
Masizole Mnqasela (born 1 March 1981) is a South African politician, formerly the 7th Speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament. He was previously a Member of Parliament with the Democratic Alliance from 2009 to 2014, the Shadow Minister of Home Affairs, and the country's third youngest parliamentarian after the African National Congress's Mduduzi Manana, and the Congress of the People's Luzelle Adams. Political career Mnqasela was initially an African National Congress branch organiser in the executive committee of Ward 96. He was General Secretary of the Ward 96 Development Forum in Makhaza, Khayelitsha from 2001 to 2002. He introduced the Democratic Alliance to the ANC's bloated Khayelitsha Development Forum (KDF), which refused membership to the DA for quite some time. Mnqasela served as a member of its executive committee between 2004 and 2007. Constituency Chairperson From 2003 to 2004, he served as the DA Branch Chairperson of Ward 96 in the City of Cape Town. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is located in the southeast of the country, with a long shoreline on the Indian Ocean and sharing borders with three other provinces and the countries of Mozambique, Eswatini and Lesotho. Its capital is Pietermaritzburg, and its largest city is Durban. It is the second-most populous province in South Africa, with slightly fewer residents than Gauteng. Two areas in KwaZulu-Natal have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park. These areas are extremely scenic as well as important to the surrounding ecosystems. During the 1830s and early 1840s, the northern part of what is now KwaZulu-Natal was established as the Zulu Kingdom while the southern part was, briefly, the Boer Natalia Repu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, first post-apartheid election installed Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national President, has served as President of the ANC since 18 December 2017. Founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), the organisation was formed to agitate, by moderate methods, for the rights of black South Africans. When the National Party (South Africa), National Party government came to power 1948 South African general election, in 1948, the ANC's central purpose became to oppose the new government's policy of institutionalised apartheid. To this end, its methods and means of organisation shifted; its adoption of the techn ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lindiwe Mazibuko
Lindiwe Mazibuko (born 9 April 1980) is a Swazi-born South African academic, former politician, musician and the former leader of the Official Opposition Democratic Alliance (DA). She was elected DA Parliamentary Leader on 27 October 2011, beating incumbent Athol Trollip in a tight race, becoming the first non-white person to lead the Democratic Alliance in Parliament. Mazibuko resigned from her position as a member of the Official Opposition in 2014, to study at Harvard University in the United States for a year. She stated that her resignation had nothing to do with differences within the DA, but that it would improve what she could offer the party politically. It does appear, however, that there was a serious and fundamental tension between her and party leader Helen Zille that led to her departure. Zille stated that Mazibuko knew she would lose the election for Parliamentary Leader, calling her move to Harvard "plan B". She became less popular towards the end of her tenure ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Makashule Gana
Makashule Gana (born 11 August 1983) is a South African politician who served as a member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature for the opposition Democratic Alliance. He was previously a member of the National Assembly, where he was Shadow Minister of Human Settlements between 2014 and 2016. Gana also served as the Deputy Federal Chairperson of the DA until 2015. He was previously leader of the DA Youth and DA councillor in the City of Johannesburg, he holds a BSc degree and is currently registered for a Postgraduate Diploma in Management at the Wits Business School. Childhood and education Gana was born in Lefara Village in the town of Tzaneen on 11 August 1983. He has two siblings and was raised by his late mother, Gavaza. Gana was a herd boy in his village. He started primary school at Mushoti Primary in 1988. He attended N'wahungani Junior Secondary in 1995 and thereafter moved schools plenty of times. He moved to Lefara School in July 1996, before moving to DZJ Seconda ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |