Most of the leaders will retain their positions, including chairman Bosman Grobler who is expected to re-emerge unopposed.
Organisers in the Mpumalanga DA are preparing for an elective congress to give Jane Sithole another term as provincial leader.
Sources said the party has confidence in her – despite her party losing the official opposition status in the provincial legislature while at the helm of the party and seeing a sizeable amount in its voter base shifting to the FF+.
37-year-old current chairman Bosman Grobler will also return to his position.
The DA has the position of leader who leads the party and that of chairperson, who presides over meetings.
Sithole and Grobler were elected during the March 2018 elective conference where they were elected leader and chairperson respectively.
The party plans to hold its elective conference on 10 October 2020.
Other positions in the DA are that of deputy leader, deputy chairperson and finance chairperson.
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Legislature member Trudie Grove-Morgan is the deputy leader, Themba Mlotshwa is the deputy chairman, Farhat Essack is finance chair, Annerie Weber chairwoman of Women’s Network, deputised by Elsie van Douwe and Palesa Mobango as leader of Youth, deputised by Kuzwakele Mdau and Linky Shongwe.
Mlotshwa and Essack’s positions of deputy chair and finance chair will be contested and are the only two positions that will be contested.
While Mlotshwa is said to be voluntarily leaving the deputy chairperson post in order to retire from politics, Essack is not and he will face off with Mbombela councillor Steven Schormann who also eyes the post.
Supporters are currently lobbying for Gert Sibande district councillor Muso Kubheka to take over the deputy chairperson seat and work hand in glove with Grobler. Others want Secunda councillor Ciska Jordaan to contest the same seat.
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The provincial congress on 10 October 2020 will be in preparation for a national one, the Federal Congress, in November 2020, where Mbali Ntuli and John Steenhuisen will face off for the party’s top job.
Sithole said as leader of Mpumalanga she will definitely be supporting Steenhuisen for the position of leaders and she doesn’t know about other members of the party in the province because in the DA they allow for individual views, unlike when Mpumalanga acts as a bloc and takes a single consolidated view to the national congress.
“I don’t think that there is a bloc, people are independent and people have their minds. People always assume that when you are the leader you have a final say, no in the DA we have the healthiest democracy and each and everyone has a right to prefer a certain candidate for any position,” said Sithole.
(edited by ZK)
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