The Democratic Alliance's success is South Africa's success, says Helen Zille's chief of staff, Geordin Hill-Lewis. "That is why the Western Cape under the DA was first to provide universal access to anti-retroviral medication and is now a world leader in the field of HIV prevention and treatment.

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Our success is south africa's success. That is why the Western Cape under the DA was first to provide universal access to anti-retroviral medication and is now a world leader in the field of HIV prevention and treatment.

And that is why where the DA governs, the conditions are improving investor confidence, which is creating jobs - even as jobs are shed elsewhere.

That is why independent researchers found that Midvaal was the only place in Gauteng where the majority of residents - black and white - are happy with service delivery.

And Baviaans, a small DA-run municipality in the Eastern Cape, is the exception in that province. It is clean, services are delivered and its finances are in good shape.

This is why, through partnerships, we have reduced crime by 90% in Central Cape Town and are now steadily following this example in our pilot projects in Khayelitsha.

It is why we are making education a key priority in provincial government -- a good education is the best affirmative action there is. When we get the chance to put our policies into practice, we lead the way in eradicating the legacy of apartheid. We can achieve our goal.

But knowing our destination is meaningless unless we have a road map to get there.

I believe we will succeed if we do three things.

Firstly we must represent the needs and aspirations of all South Africans. And we must do it really well. We have to become a party of activists. On the ground. Where the people need us to be.

I often speak about the importance of becoming a party of government.

But we can only do so if we are good in opposition. And so I want to speak to the majority of you who are sustaining our struggle for freedom where we are not yet winning elections.

You are the bedrock of our party and your role is no less important than those in executive office. And to our lone rangers, those isolated and single DA public representatives in far-flung municipalities: when you face the daily barrage of insult and intimidation, think of Helen Suzman. Stand up to bullies. Expose the truth. Fight corruption.

Oppose injustice. Serve the people.

Helen could never have imagined that we would one day be in government. She did what she did because it was the right thing to do. That is why, to use her words, we must keep on keeping on.

The second thing we must do is to deliver where we govern. We must do this because that is what we have been elected to do.

According to world-renowned Africa expert Professor Paul Collier there are two ways parties can grow in complex plural societies. There is an easy way and there is a hard way.

The easy way is to play the race card. The hard way is to win people’s trust through representing their interests and delivering services. Our values only allow us to choose the difficult route. And we are succeeding. We are showing that life slowly, not overnight, gets better where the DA governs.

Peter Bruce of Business Day summed it up when he said:

“As most ANC-run cities broadly subside and most DA-run ones broadly prosper, the political effect becomes a little like compound interest. You don’t notice it at first but after a while it really begins to matter. A lot. It’s about doing your job - everyone doing their jobs -properly.”

That is what it is about.

But we must also grow our support another way – through realigning politics in South Africa.

There are people who share our values, in all political parties. If we manage to bring all those people together in one political vehicle, I believe we will be a majority. We must build this new majority. We have started realignment by building coalitions with various opposition parties.

In the past four years we have learnt a great deal about coalitions. They are fragile and complex to manage. We have sometimes been held to ransom by parties with minimal support. Some of our coalitions have failed.

Despite all this I remain convinced that coalitions are a crucial step in the realignment process. We must now move to the next step. Of course we must consider every case on its merits. We have learnt lessons from the past. We know that it is pointless to exchange our principles for power. But pristine powerlessness is also self defeating.

We must bring together all those who still believe in a place called the new South Africa. And who want to get there together, in all our glorious diversity.

This does not imply a slavish adherence to numerical representivity, or quotas, or window-dressing. It means knowing that diversity is essential to achieving excellence and equity in our country. It is to understand what we mean when we say one nation, one future.

Now, there may be some who feel threatened by our growing diversity. Let me just say this: diversity is the future of the DA, of South Africa, and of the world.

At the same time, there are those who use their colour as a trump-card. It is equally important to get over that tendency. As one commentator has pointed out: race card fraud is as dishonest as credit card fraud. We have defined the alternatives for South Africa’s future.

Now we must take that choice clear to all citizens. We must show that there is another South Africa within our reach. It is a place where politicians work to serve the people, not to enrich themselves.

It is a place where politicians are scared of the voters, not the other way around.

A place where the state does those things for people that they cannot be expected to do for themselves. A place where every child has a fair chance to make a success of her life.

A place where people take responsibility for their future.

It is a place where each one of us strives to becoming the best we can be, enabling our country to achieve greatness and chart a new course for the world.

That is the South African dream. We can choose to make it real. Let us go forward together and make it happen.