Maimane says next DA leader should embrace more inclusive vision for SA

Build One South Africa (BOSA) leader Mmusi Maimane said the next leader of his former political home, the Democratic Alliance (DA), should embrace a more inclusive vision for the country.

Maimane said while he has no particular interest in who takes over from John Steenhuisen, he’s standing by his version of events that he was told by the party’s executive to resign as leader in 2019.

This, amid repeated claims by Steenhuisen that Maimane “walked off the job” and left him to pick up the pieces.

Last week, Steenhuisen announced he was calling time on his leadership of the party, believing he’s achieved all he set out to do, after Maimane quit along with other party seniors.

In his 2024 memoir, Mmusi Maimane named Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis as a force behind his removal as DA leader.

Now widely tipped to succeed Steenhuisen, who will be calling it quits after two terms at the helm, Maimane said he’s ambivalent about how the party’s leadership race will play out.

“The DA’s leadership contestation isn’t a contestation of ideas and ideals; it becomes a few people who can make decisions and then push and pull whoever they so want. And to suggest we walked off [the job] is certainly the most mischaracterisation of history.”

Maimane believes the DA’s leadership race should be focused on who can evolve the party and its policies.

“The only answer I have to give is that: is this going to be a DA that gets stuck in its old ways, or is this going to be a DA that will reform, invite other people so that we can build an alternative for the future?”

Despite his fallout with the party, Maimane says he’s prepared to work with the next DA leader to realign the country’s politics.