In February 2014, DA supporters marched to Luthuli House demanding “real jobs”. ANC supporters chased them through the streets before the marchers made it to the governing party’s headquarters and the SAPS had to disperse the crowd with rubber bullets.

Mbali Ntuli, DA Youth leader at the time, had opposed the plan to march. Then-party leader Helen Zille called her a “prima donna” with a victim mentality. Ntuli resigned as DA Youth leader the same year.

Six years later, the DA has changed, but divisions continue to run along similar lines and the ongoing fight for the party’s identity and strategic direction looks set to continue in the run-up to the party’s federal congress in May 2019.

Ntuli has announced she will run for DA leader in a race that will pit her against interim leader John Steenhuisen, and potentially other candidates, as the party seeks to rebuild from its 2019 general election losses while continuing to face ongoing ideological and personal divisions.

In a letter to colleagues announcing her candidacy, Ntuli said the DA was in “deep crisis”. Ntuli, a member of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature since 2014, has at times been an outspoken critic of the DA’s decisions under both Zille and Mmusi Maimane, who resigned as leader in October 2019.

Her letter listed the party’s recent setbacks. The DA vote significantly declined in the 2019 elections and the party has since recorded losses in by-elections. Some coalition partners were critical of the DA in the metros it won in 2016, meaning the party lost Nelson Mandela Bay and Johannesburg. Its hold on Tshwane is tenuous.

Ntuli said donors have abandoned the DA, which is in “a financial crisis” and constituencies can’t carry out political activities. She said the party has lost staff due to resignations and retrenchments and commentators and members are focused on the party’s challenges.

Ntuli’s candidacy comes as the DA has recently gone through internal leadership turmoil. Its Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba resigned, claiming the party was anti-poor. Maimane suggested the party didn’t represent the black poor or his vision for a united SA.

Zille, who has been criticised for being insensitive to black South Africans in her tweets about colonialism, was elected to a top leadership position in October 2019. Steenhuisen, since elected as interim leader, has appeared to move away from courting the black electorate by linking redress to race.

The party’s new policy on values appears to suggest the DA is primarily concerned about regaining the white voters it lost in 2019 rather than building in black communities. The party has said it is committed to uplifting those who have been disadvantaged by the past, but it is committed to fighting against racialising policies.

Ntuli’s campaign and potential leadership could be more likely to acknowledge black South Africans as a group, perhaps more than the DA has in the past.

“Just a few months ago we were focusing on winning government. Today, we are in a permanent state of damage control. We no longer plan to take over governments; we are planning to just hold on to our existing support base. And even that seems impossible,” Ntuli wrote in her letter to her colleagues.

“People no longer have this faith in us because they have been watching our party get destroyed from within – while some amongst us have designed plans to take control of our party, driven solely by self-interest, and not the common good.”

“The governing party is destroying itself from within and they are at their weakest ever, but so too are we. This is why South Africans are not looking to us an alternative. This was the opportunity we had been waiting years for, and we have thrown it away.”

Ntuli touched on some of the issues in the DA, mentioned in the report that was ultimately used to oust Maimane, but unlike the current leadership, Ntuli suggested the party remains in crisis.

“It is not common in our party to criticise our own weaknesses. We have developed a culture of self-praise to please our leadership and to increase our own chances of re-election. But look where this has brought us,” said Ntuli.

“Do we believe that South Africans from all walks of life will trust us and help us build a new majority? I worry with our current trajectory that the answer is a resounding no. We all have a responsibility to make the DA the party of the future. A party that all people can trust and a party that can actually win again.”

Ntuli’s main opposition is likely to be Steenhuisen. Recent votes at DA meetings suggests he is the likely candidate for leader, but the DA’s congress includes a large number of delegates who don’t get access to the party’s council meetings.

DA Western Cape leader Bonginkosi Madikizela and Gauteng leader John Moodey are also reported to be potentially in the running for DA leader.

Madikizela said on Tuesday that he is still in consultations. “I haven’t made up my mind yet,” he told Daily Maverick.

Moodey on Tuesday evening said he had consulted his family and supporters and had also decided to enter the race for DA leader. DM