Barely a day after resigning as South Africa’s official opposition party leader, outgoing Democratic Alliance (DA) chairman Mmusi Maimane on Thursday announced that he was resigning from his party membership and parliamentary seat as well, APA has learnt.
On Wednesday, following weeks of speculation, Maimane told the nation that he had resigned his opposition DA leadership because he felt he was being undermined by the powerful white colleagues he was working with.
“I have worked tirelessly to build the project of One SA for All. It’s been my greatest honour to serve the people of South Africa and will continue to do so.
“I have today resigned from the DA and Parliament. Thank you to the people of this country for your faith in our nation. God bless South Africa,” Maimane announced on Twitter on Thursday.
The resignations follow the weekend meeting of the party’s federal council where former leader, Helen Zille, in a political comeback, was elected to replace James Selfe as the chairperson of the party’s federal council.
With this development, DA Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba was the first to jump the troubled ship that is the DA on Monday.
Maimane said he had fought to create a party for all South Africans, but felt that there was a “consistent and coordinated attempt to undermine my leadership and ensure that either this project failed, or I failed”.
He added: “Over the past months, it has become quite clear to me that there exists a grouping within the DA who do not see eye to eye with me, and do not share this vision for the party and the direction it was taking.”
Maimane was elected to lead the party in May 2015, taking over from Zille. He has faced tough criticism over his handling of a variety of challenges that have gripped the party, which is seen as full of old remnants of apartheid sympathisers.
Trouble began to brew for Maimane after the 2019 general elections when his party lost some seats in the House, leading his unrealistic detractors to accuse him of failing to take the party into State House.
NM/jn/APA