“Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would be a leader of this great party,” said John Steenhuisen on Sunday, moments after being announced as the next leader of the Democratic Alliance.

Steenhuisen beat rival Mbali Ntuli with 80% of the votes cast at the party’s federal congress.

“Mbali, you didn’t make this an easy race,” Steenhuisen said with a laugh.

“You fought me every step of the way, and you never gave up.”

In his victory address, Steenhuisen said that South Africans had been robbed of their destiny by a state which is corrupt but “hell-bent on telling you what to do”.

He painted a dark picture of a future in which the South African government is “coming for your home, coming for your health, and coming for your savings”.

Under his leadership, Steenhuisen said the DA would offer “people power, not state power”.

He declared: “There is nothing wrong with South Africa that cannot be fixed by everything that is good about South Africans.”

Steenhuisen acknowledged that the DA has made mistakes in the recent past, and “lost sight of who we are”.

But “the days of breaking trust with South Africa are well and truly over,” the new leader said.

DA federal council chairperson Helen Zille. (Photo: Gallo Images/Jaco Marais)

As expected, former party leader Helen Zille beat out sole rival Mike Moriarty to be re-elected as the chair of the party’s federal council: a role in which she has significant influence over the DA’s day-to-day running. Zille bagged 69% of the votes cast, making this the tightest race of the congress.

James Masango and Thomas Walters were elected unopposed as Zille’s deputies on the federal council.

Dr Dion George was also unopposed as federal finance chairperson.

The announcement of the results was introduced by Dr Ivan Meyer, who was re-elected unopposed as the DA’s federal chairperson.

Jacques Smalle, Anton Bredell and Refiloe Nt’sekhe are the three deputy federal chairs.

88.6% of the 2039 delegates participating in the 2020 federal congress cast their votes for the leadership using unique SMS codes and an online voting system. They were given six hours to do so on Saturday. It was not immediately clear why all registered delegates did not vote.

Party spokesperson Solly Malatsi told journalists that after voting closed on Saturday evening, an independent auditor would witness the transfer of the vote data to a flashdrive and lock it in a safe overnight.  

The writing appeared to be on the wall for Ntuli on Saturday, when her attempts to pass two amendments to the DA constitution were rejected by the congress. One involved the proposed establishment of a deputy party leader position, which was criticised on the basis that it might foster factionalism and create expectations of automatic succession to the top post.

In an address to delegates on Sunday morning in his capacity as interim federal leader, Steenhuisen hit out at the media for unfairly negative coverage of the party. He accused some journalists of being unable “to escape the toxic spell of the ruling party”.

Steenhuisen also criticised the ANC’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, terming “almost all of” the lockdown “not necessary”.

He said: “The devastation of the past seven months has achieved very little” – except to illuminate the “clear and blue and vast” water separating the DA from the ANC. Steenhuisen suggested that this was achieved through the superior performance of the Western Cape government during the pandemic.

“If it weren’t for this challenging year, we would not have seen the very best of the DA up against the very worst of the ANC,” Steenhuisen said. DM