‘Dictatorship’: Several members of ActionSA in Jhb defect to DA

Several members of ActionSA in Johannesburg defected to the DA. (Photo: DA Gauteng/Facebook)

Mandla Nyaqela, an ActionSA council member from Johannesburg and the chairman of five of ActionSA’s branches in the city, defected to the DA.

According to Nyaqela, he joined ActionSA with great hope. However, he is cruelly disillusioned, mainly because according to him there is no room for debate in the party. He described the party as a “dictatorship where your role as a member is seen as receiving instructions”.

Nyaqela also said that people are not elected to positions, but appointed by one or two top leaders. According to him, this makes it “impossible to talk about democracy in an organization that is completely undemocratic”.

(Photo: DA Gauteng/Facebook)

Sipho Magubane, ActionSA’s branch chairman in ward 37, the chairmen of four other branches and 50 former ActionSA activists also defected to the DA.

Helen Zille, the DA’s mayoral candidate in Johannesburg, welcomed the group.

“Those who join (the DA) know that the only way to save Johannesburg and make it a strong city we can believe in again is to give the DA a majority. People are beginning to understand that the best way to get water, power, clean neighbourhoods, investments and jobs is through the good management of which the DA has a history,” says Zille.

The party also believes that the defection will be a sensitive blow to ActionSA’s ability to mobilize people at the grassroots level in Soweto, an important constituency for the party.