South Africa’s main opposition party in turmoil as leader resigns

South Africa’s main opposition party was plunged into turmoil on Wednesday with the resignation of Mmusi Maimane, its first black leader.

Mr Maimane said that the Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in Africa’s most industrial nation, had become “not the best vehicle” to confront Cyril Ramaphosa’s governing African National Congress as he stepped down following months of bitter infighting.

Mr Maimane, who castigated “several months of a consistent and co-ordinated attack” from within the party, was the first black leader of a movement that was traditionally linked with whites and other ethnic minorities in South Africa.

He worked to broaden its appeal to ANC voters disaffected by the misrule of Jacob Zuma, the former president who stepped down in a corruption scandal last year.

It delivered the biggest blow to the ANC in decades of post-apartheid rule when the party lost control of major cities including Johannesburg to DA-led governments in 2016 local elections.

But Mr Maimane’s strategy faced a setback with the ascent of Mr Ramaphosa, who has promised to root out the graft.

The DA lost votes in national elections this year even as the ANC returned to power with its lowest ever support.

The losses led to a whispering campaign against Mr Maimane’s leadership which his allies have blamed on party figures who wanted to shore up its core white vote.

“Despite my best efforts, perhaps the DA is not the best vehicle to take forward my vision of one South Africa,” Mr Maimane said on Wednesday.

Mr Maimane said he would remain as the party’s leader in parliament until a meeting to choose his successor.

The turmoil has meant that the ruling party lacks a strong opposition at a time when the economy has returned to rolling blackouts imposed by Eskom, the near-bankrupt state power utility.

Mr Ramaphosa has also foundered on pledges to turn round a stagnant economy and to curb high rates of joblessness and inequality.

This week the DA also lost Herman Mashaba, Johannesburg’s mayor, who said he was resigning because he could not reconcile himself with those in the party “who believe race is irrelevant in the discussion of poverty and inequality in South Africa in 2019.”

The DA’s infighting came to a head this month with the return of Helen Zille, Mr Maimane’s predecessor as leader, to a significant position within the party.

Until this year Ms Zille was provincial premier of the Western Cape, the party’s power base. But she has also been seen as a divisive figure in the DA, notably over comments in 2017 that were taken to suggest South Africa’s colonial past had not been all negative.

Mr Maimane said on Wednesday that the comments “did not help build trust between black and white South Africans, and they undermined the project the party was engaged in.”

Ms Zille has always denied that the comments endorsed colonial or white minority rule.