Durban — As the campaign to replace the DA’s outgoing eThekwini caucus leader, Nicole Graham, goes to the wire, all four candidates for the post have sounded confident and optimistic they will emerge victorious when the new leader is elected on Monday.
Speaking to the Daily News on Thursday, with only three days to the finishing line, all candidates said they were more than ready to take the position and lead the party caucus.
Earlier in the week, the provincial leadership announced that councillors Mzamo Billy, Thabani Mthethwa, Sakhile Mngadi and Shontel de Boer had met the requirements to contest the position.
However, it was up to 59 councillors to choose the leader. Speaking to the paper on their final push as they wrap up their campaigns, each outlined what they would do if elected. The Daily News looks at what they promise to offer should they be elected to the position.
Ward 36 (Durban North) councillor De Boer, who is the only woman in the race, sounded confident and said she felt she was the right candidate for the position given her time in the party and her experience as a councillor in eThekwini. She said her knowledge and experience of the inner workings of the municipality, should she be elected, would not only be good for the DA but for the opposition in the city.
As a councillor since 2011 coupled with her experience as the whip of the Community Services Committee as well as being a member of the important Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC), De Boer said it was time for her to lead the party caucus. Having joined the DA in 2008, she went to become a PR (Proportional Representation) councillor in 2011 until last year when she won the ward for the party. She is currently representing the DA in the MPAC.
The current party whip Thabani Mthethwa also sounded confident, saying his experience both in the DA and in the Thekwini leadership as well as outside the party, would make sure that his party’s caucus is focused on what matters to the people of the city, adding that he would solidify the relationship which the party already has with other parties.
“A stronger DA-led by experienced leadership would be good for the people of the city which is what I intend to offer my party and eThekwini citizens,” said Mthethwa.
Mthethwa and De Boer are expected to face an uphill battle from Mzamo Billy and Sakhile Mngadi. Both councillors grew up in the party ranks, from university student politics to becoming councillors.
Mngadi, who became a ward councillor in the municipality at the age of 29, said he was ready for the new role and vowed to unite not only the DA but the opposition if he got elected.
He became involved in politics during his time at Nelson Mandela Bay University in 2013, where he joined the DA Student Organisation (Daso), which won the Student Representative Council elections. He is currently a provincial DA youth caucus member and was a PR councillor before winning his ward. He was groomed by the party and believes with his experience and development the party had invested in him through the party’s political school, he was ready to lead the eThekwini caucus.
Billy, also a Daso graduate, said he was ready for the position. He said having been trusted by the party councillors who elected him nine months ago, he was ready to build from that trust and move forward as a caucus leader.
In a letter he wrote to councillors as part of his final push for the post, Billy reminded colleagues that it was time to support renewal, progress and courage, saying the DA in eThekwini had an unavoidable responsibility to improve relations with like-minded political parties so that they can urgently take the ANC out of government. He became involved in DA student politics while at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Daily News