‘I have loved leading the DA,’ says Steenhuisen, exiting leadership race under party pressure

Democratic Alliance leader and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen put on a brave face on Wednesday, 4 February 2026, doing his best to project that he wasn’t pushed out of the party’s leadership race.

In a carefully choreographed appearance at the Riverside Hotel in Durban, an emotional Steenhuisen entered a small hall occupied by media and about 50 party loyalists.

He delivered a well-rehearsed speech, giving himself credit for leading the DA into a new era and announced that he wouldn’t be standing for re-election as party leader in April.

He said he would stay on as agriculture minister to devote himself to ending the foot-and-mouth disease crisis.

At the end of his 20-minute oratory, Steenhuisen promptly left the building, leaving journalists, primed with questions, bemused.

Quizzed on why he didn’t take questions, Steenhuisen’s friend and campaign manager, Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson, said: “The speech said all he needed to say.”

Read more: IN FULL: Read John Steenhuisen’s ‘moonshot mission accomplished’ speech

Steenhuisen said it was a “mission accomplished” for him.

He left having delivered the “moonshot pact” that ushered in the Government of National Unity (GNU) and kept out the “Doomsday Coalition” (a potential alliance between the ANC, MK party and Economic Freedom Fighters).

He said that for decades the DA and its predecessors had fought to carry a vision of building an open, opportunity-driven society for all into the national government.

“It was only by gaining access to the levers of national power that we could ever hope to build a more prosperous, fair and successful country. But to actually get there, a leader was required who would do the hard work of converting the DA from a party of mere opposition, into a governing force strong enough to bend the arc of history.”

Steenhuisen said that since his election as party leader in 2019, he had helped transform the DA from “a perpetual opposition, smirking and pointing fingers while SA declined”.

After his re-election as leader in April 2023, with a mandate of 83% from Federal Congress delegates, Steenhuisen said he helped the DA form the moonshot pact, shedding its image of “shouting from the sidelines into a party that gets stuck in to fix the country we all love”.

The move to more collaborative politics sought to unite and isolate those keen on breaking the country. The GNU and the DA’s ascension to national power “constituted the single greatest achievement in the history of our party”.

The DA had since leveraged its influence to set SA on a fundamentally better path.

“SA today is a profoundly better country than it was on the eve of the 2024 general elections.”

In an apparent reference to internal DA leadership battles, Steenhuisen said it was paramount that the party and other GNU partners put SA ahead of factional and personal agendas.

“It would be a tragedy too great to contemplate for internal party manoeuvring to plunge the GNU and our country into chaos. We have come too far, and we still have too far to go, to allow anyone to derail the progress we are making.”

Steenhuisen said the rest of his term of office would be focused on “defeating the most devastating foot-and-mouth disease outbreak our country has ever seen. That is not a part-time job.”

It wasn’t fair on farmers, he added, for him to split his time between battling the outbreak, while also running an internal campaign for the next three months and then leading a local government election campaign.

Steenhuisen said the DA he inherited was reading its own obituary, and the one he would hand over to the next leader was polling at 30%.

“I have loved leading the DA, which is why today I let it go with a smile on my face, and triumphant peace in my heart.”

A corner of his own making

Steenhuisen’s confirmation that he would not run for a third term as party head might have surprised many, but some senior party members said his back was against the wall and he and his supporters had fashioned the best exit deal they could.

The 49-year-old career politician mustered on home ground in Durban to put on a show of force, a face-saving exercise engineered by his party allies to buffer a routing by his foes, including DA Federal Chairperson Helen Zille, some insiders said.

Steenhuisen, who has led the DA since November 2020, while serving as interim leader for a year before that, began his political career as an eThekwini councillor in 1999.

His withdrawal from the DA leadership race paves the way for Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis to compete as a clear favourite at the party’s April congress.

Read more: Behind the scenes of Steenhuisen’s dealmaking with the DA

Steenhuisen is a powerful figure in the party, but there was no shortage of schadenfreude. Many relished his exit.

A senior DA member said Steenhuisen was thrust into a corner of his own making, mishandling various controversies. Late last year, he had a default judgment against him for a personal credit card debt of R150,000.

This emerged from a bitter row with Dion George, the former forestry, fisheries and environment minister, who has since resigned, but not without embarrassing disclosures about Steenhuisen’s finances.

The public spat led to an internal DA inquiry and investigation amid what critics have labelled Steenhuisen’s failure to handle the foot-and-mouth outbreak that has cost the economy dearly.

Although a DA probe cleared Steenhuisen of the allegation that he had misappropriated funds through his use of his DA credit card, he faced additional charges that were never publicly specified.

A senior DA member said: “Things became untenable. We can say what we like, but our funders call the shots. They made the message clear. It didn’t help that Dion George was finance chair and had the donors on speed dial. And, the foot-and-mouth saga – the DA’s constituency is strongly represented by farmers. You don’t piss them off. Their message was also clear.”

The DA member reiterated what many political commentators have speculated.

“Helen (Zille) is behind this. Their beef goes back a long way. Geordin Hill-Lewis said he wouldn’t run against John. But a deal where John leaves, keeps his Cabinet perks and doesn’t lose face, opens things up for Geordin.

“John will stay on as parliamentary leader. He is very influential in the party caucus and powerful in the party. But he read the room; you have to give him credit for that.”

The insider said senior members of the DA in KZN were asked late last week to attend a meeting with Steenhuisen while he was visiting Durban this week. They were assured it had nothing to do with internal campaigning in the leadership race.

But that fib was exposed on Tuesday.

‘Dignified exit’

Steenhuisen’s departure came as a surprise to some members. DA MPs and councillors who spoke to Daily Maverick had no warning of the move.

Said one: “We don’t have a clue. The investigation [arising out of Steenhuisen’s spat with George] was instituted by Helen as the party’s federal chair. I believe there are outstanding issues with that. Maybe John is moving now to deal with those.”

A senior DA member close to Steenhuisen explained his exit: “John has a family: a wife and three daughters. He faced a miserable leadership contest, the foot-and-mouth crisis and the prospect of leading the party into local government elections. Three weeks ago, he was ready to go into the leadership race, but then he realised something had to give.

“He made a choice. It’s nothing more than that. The story of Helen Zille’s long tentacles at play is gossip. There is no evidence of that. And I have no evidence of anything else being amiss.”

A former DA insider said: “This whole thing is a choreographed, dignified exit for Steenhuisen, who has lost the confidence of the party and its matriarch. It also clears the runway for Hill-Lewis. John has become a liability, and Zille has eaten him up.”

Read more: What happens next in the DA if Steenhuisen goes?

In Durban on Wednesday, Steenhuisen was flanked by many supporters, most notably Macpherson. He and Steenhuisen, both from Durban North, are among 12 party members serving in the executive in the GNU.

Their presence has invoked praise for the party’s role in advancing the country’s democratic project, but also provoked criticism that the DA’s role in the Cabinet has led to a cosying-up that has impaired the party’s ability to hold the ANC accountable.

Before Wednesday’s press conference, ActionSA’s Alan Beesley said if Steenhuisen stepped down, it would be a consequence of his failure in office.

“His position has become untenable because of the foot-and-mouth crisis. The party credit card and his personal spending are at the core of governance. If I were a DA donor, I would be very worried. He replaced Dion George with his friend Willie Aucamp, who has questionable links to the hunting industry.

“He has surrounded himself with friends, and under his leadership the DA has allowed the ANC to continue pursuing failed policies. I wonder what the surprise will be. I doubt he will leave the Cabinet. He’s probably unemployable outside of politics. He shouted the loudest about the bloated Cabinet and their perks until he joined it. Now he’s travelling overseas the whole time.”

Steenhuisen’s steady rise through the DA has seen him outmanoeuvre various DA leaders and rivals at different times, including Zille, Lindiwe Mazibuko, Mmusi Maimane and Mbali Ntuli (the latter three have since resigned from the party).

Steenhuisen was once described by analyst Jon Cayzer as the beneficiary of the party’s “chumocracy”.

Cayzer described Steenhuisen as a “consummate party insider… he flourished. His peerless grasp of parliamentary procedure at the provincial and national tiers paid off.”

Steenhuisen’s critics in the DA describe him as a “brilliant politician, but a poor leader”. His supporters crow about his pre-GNU robust parliamentary style and how he has projected statesmanship since being in Cabinet, especially distinguishing himself at last year’s public meeting at White House with President Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald Trump. DM