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Maimane proposes early elective and policy conference

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Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane has put a proposal for an early elective and policy conference at the party’s Federal Council meeting currently underway in Johannesburg.

While briefing the media, party spokesperson, Solly Malatsi also confirmed that the Organisational Review report has been presented by the panel and that the delegates are discussing its content.

The report, which was commissioned following a poor showing for the 2019 May elections, is said to have recommended that Maimane and the party’s CEO, Paul Boughey, step aside.

Boughey tendered his resignation on Thursday.

Malatsi says Maimane made the proposal during his address at the beginning of the meeting.

“The leader addressed the Federal Council. In his remarks, part of the announcement he made was to reiterate his proposal for the Federal Council to consider an early congress, but also to move toward a policy conference that the Federal Council will need to take a decision going forward.”

“As you know, the Federal Council is the highest decision-making structure of the organisation and such major decision will need to be adopted by the Federal Council when it sees fit to do so.”

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Meanwhile, some delegates at the DA Federal Council meeting at the party’s headquarters in Johannesburg, have raised concerns about the voting system.

Speaking to the SABC earlier before the meeting got underway, the delegates said that they were worried that their preferred candidate for the position of Federal Council chairperson, might lose by default. Some 155 delegates gathered at the two-day meeting and will be voting for a new chairperson on Sunday.

Earlier in the week, the party’s presiding officer, Desiree Van Der Walt announced that delegates would have to rank the leaders from the most to the least preferred.

Party spokesperson, Solly Malatsi says the party has always used this system.

“You rank by order of your preference. There’ll be four individuals. You must allocate them each a number 1 up to 4. So, the way it works is that whoever obtains the largest points from that calculation will be declared the victor. So, it’s not such that you choose one person. You put a cross next to a person and the calculation is based on a number of crosses. In fact, if you do that it will be a spoilt ballot that will not be considered, and it’s been used across in the DA for as long as I’ve been here and even all elections in the organisation.”

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