After the first democratic elections in 1994, the then Democratic Party (DP) won just seven seats in the National Assembly and three in the Senate. We received 1.7% of the vote which made us only the fifth biggest opposition party. Everybody wrote us off and all the armchair critics said the DP had no future in the new dispensation. As we look back 25 years later, the Democratic Alliance (DA) now has 89 seats in Parliament, having won 22% of the vote in 2014. We are the only political party that has grown with each election since 1994; the only party with a proud history of having fought for all South Africans for 25 years.

People often look at opposition parties and wonder why they are so critical of the governing party – in our case the ANC. The simple answer is that it is our Constitutional mandate. Our Parliamentary system is structured in such a way that there must be checks and balances on the government of the day. All parties must fight for the rights of all South Africans and push back hard against any government failures or shortcomings. The DA has done this relentlessly and fearlessly.

I started my career in politics as a researcher for the DA’s predecessor party; the Progressive Federal Party in 1979. I had the privilege to work alongside leaders such as Helen Suzman and Colin Eglin. For many years before then, Suzman was the party’s sole representative – the only liberal, anti-apartheid voice in Parliament. She would later stand next to Nelson Mandela as he signed the Constitution into law in 1996.

In 1992, I became the Executive Director of the DP and was preparing the party for the first democratic elections. After the elections I was elected to the Senate – later National Council of Provinces (NCOP) – and Tony Leon became the leader of the party.

Being a member of that first Parliament was both a privilege and extremely daunting. As an opposition party, we had the unenviable task of opposing Mandela’s government. How would one begin to criticise a man who had become an international symbol of peace and reconciliation? But we had to keep the government on its toes; a point Mandela himself acknowledged when he said, “it is important for the Opposition to hold up a mirror to the government and point out where we do things wrong”.

Being a member of that first Parliament also meant that one was automatically a member of the Constitutional Assembly – the body that had to draw up South Africa’s final Constitution. That job had to be finished by 27 April 1996, which placed us under pressure. As a result, we sat late into the nights and often into the early mornings – but met the deadline. And there can be few higher honours than to have been one of the “drafters of the Constitution”.

The first Parliament was typified by a special sort of collegiality. All MPs, whatever their party, recognised the immense challenge we all faced repairing and reconstruction and reconciling South Africa. Debates were characterised not by slogans and insults, but by a genuine contestation about ideas and solutions.

But when Mandela stepped down after one term in office, things began to take a different turn in national politics. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another.

After the 1999 elections, it was clear from the start that we would face a different government. The new president, Thabo Mbeki, had a less gracious understanding of the role the Opposition had to play in advancing democracy and demanding accountability from the government. I would say he regarded the Opposition as something of a nuisance. This time our party had won over one million votes and 38 seats in the National Assembly; this provided added impetus to fight even harder.

For the first time since 1994, we started to see the early makings of government arrogance and the beginning of what would become known as “State Capture” through the Arms Deal saga. This was the first example of major broad-scale corruption in democratic South Africa. As the Opposition, this was our first real test in exposing the truth and making sure that implicated individuals faced the full might of the law. This would lay the groundwork for the role the DA would have to play in later years in the fight against corruption.

In May 2007, Helen Zille became the leader of the DA and heralded in a new era in the party – one where we would become more than an effective Opposition, but also an effective government. The year before we took control of the City of Cape Town, giving us our first opportunity to show ourselves as a party that could provide an effective and corruption-free government for ALL South Africans.

It was also the first time we would have to negotiate a coalition government with six other parties. This was no mean feat and many doubted whether the coalition would last the full term, but it did. I think this is what informs our conviction that coalition governments are the future and will become a norm in our country, even at a national level.

Having shown ourselves to be a capable and reliable government in the City of Cape Town, we triumphed in 2009 by taking control of the Western Cape from the ANC. With the powers and competencies that come with the provincial government; the DA now had a real opportunity to position itself as an alternative government to the ANC.

More than 500,000 jobs have been created since the DA took over and employment has grown by nearly 25%. In 2018, a total of 82% of the budget was spent on service delivery to poor areas and since 2009, we have delivered almost 213,000 houses in the province. Additionally, all independent assessments show that the Western Cape has the best education system in the country, having improved outcomes in all districts. We had come far from being just a 1.7% party to now being a party of a national government-in-waiting.

On 10 May 2015, Mmusi Maimane was elected as the new leader of the DA when Zille stepped down. This was a historic moment in the party as Maimane became our first black leader. This was particularly important given the fact that for years the party had been accused of being a “minority” party that only represented white interests. This had long been a convenient line of attack from our detractors as they could not challenge us on our record.

Being in the opposition benches for 25 years has meant taking on big and small interests alike. If I have learned anything it’s that fighting for what’s right is always worth it, whether it was championing the release of the “spy tapes” when the NPA decided to drop the charges against Zuma in 2009 or taking on Bell Pottinger; a company associated with the Guptas that sought to undermine our democracy. Or the fights that never make the front pages, like helping some get an identity document after waiting for years to get one: Every fight has been worth it.

In many respects, the party has changed and grown over the past quarter-century, but one thing remains constant: we were and will always be a party that fights for all South Africans. We will always stay true to our core values of an opportunity-driven, non-racial society. On 8 May 2019, South Africans will again face the choice to vote for a brighter future under the DA or continue to keep the ANC in power. Twenty-five years after that historic election, South Africans now have an opportunity to write history once more – by electing the only party that has a proven record of building One South African for All. DM

James Selfe is Member of Parliament for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), and the party’s Federal Executive Chairperson