Athol Trollip Announces Candidacy For DA Leadership

Farrel — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 05:20:00 -0500

DA Eastern Cape Provincial Leader Athol Trollip has announced (via email so no links as of yet) that he is running for DA National Leader once Tony Leon retires in May. From his announcement it seems he plans to aggressively target disillusioned ANC voters

I plan to lead an offensive into this constituency that will accelerate the growth of our party and directly threaten the ANC hegemony over government outside of the Western Cape. There is a growing movement of disillusioned former ANC voters who feel that they have been duped and let down by the current government. I will take the DA’s message of freedom and opportunity directly to these South Africans with a passion and determination that has never before been seen in the DA.

Besides Joe Seremane, Trollip would be my choice for leader of the DA. According to what I’ve read he is fluent in isiXhosa and the lack of DA leadership who speak isiXhoza, isiZulu or Sesotho is something that I’v harped on about in the past. He is also leader in the Eastern Cape and so has lots of experience in an ANC dominated government and it’s workings (or in the case of the Eastern Cape, it’s non-workings).

I expect we might see a few more announcements by DA leadership candidates in the coming weeks. I expect at least Joe Seremane and Theuns Botha to run as well.

This is quite a change after trying to divine the intentions of the candidates for the ANC leadership for the past few months.

Politics.za: Athol Trollip Announces Candidacy For DA Leadership

Athol Trollip Announces Candidacy For DA Leadership