ANC Western Cape secretary Neville Delport defects to DA

The ANC’s decision to disband the party’s provincial leadership in the Western Cape has claimed its first victims after its former secretary Neville Delport defected to the DA on Wednesday.

Delport, along with other regional leaders and councillors, was announced as new recruits by the DA’s federal council chair Helen Zille and Western Cape provincial leader Tertuis Simmers. This was the first of many ANC members and leaders who would soon follow suit, both Zille and Delport said.

Delport said they were unhappy that Luthuli House yanked power from them that they were given by a legitimate provincial conference. This after the ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula last week announced that they had disbanded and reconfigured the provincial leadership in the province. He announced a 91-strong provincial task team led by Ebrahim Rasool as convenor who would take over the running of the ANC in the province.

“Now in the ANC, after the reconfiguration that was announced weeks ago, you would see that a conference that we won on the ticket of change — and coloured leaders, we were actually thrown out, replaced by leaders that lost a conference, and those leaders are particularly in the metros,” said Delport.

“Now those leaders don’t represent the will of our coloured communities, that is where we are stuck. Then we took a decision as a collective — and as I’ve said, many will follow — to make sure that we need to find a new political home and that new political home is the Democratic Alliance.”

He said he is happy to have joined the DA and issued a threat that more ANC members will soon follow him.

Today it’s ending, but this is just the beginning of ANC councillors — especially in rural regions — to defect to the DA as we develop a strategy in the Western Cape to ensure the DA remains the political party in charge of this province.”

—  Neville Delport

“It’s actually a great privilege to be here today — and thinking about my political career within the ANC, I’m actually very excited to be part of the DA,” said Delport.

“Today it’s ending, but this is just the beginning of ANC councillors — especially in rural regions — to defect to the DA as we develop a strategy in the Western Cape to ensure the DA remains the political party in charge of this province.”

The ANC said it is neither concerned nor bothered by Delport’s departure.

“The ANC is not surprised nor shaken by the departure of Neville Delport from the organisation. His exit affirms the correctness and necessity of the ongoing reconfiguration process, which seeks to restore the ANC’s integrity, discipline, and ideological clarity,” said ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu.

She said the ANC has always been aware of Delport’s “regressive and narrow ideological posture” which the she said was meant to divide people based on apartheid classification.

“His departure is a confirmation that those who hold these kinds of tendencies in the movement will not survive an ANC that is renewed. The renewal of our movement is a deliberate act to cleanse it of opportunism, self-interest, and political convenience,” she said.

“Delport’s decision to join a right-wing formation that is openly anti-transformation, anti-justice and indifferent to the suffering of Palestinians exposes the moral and political bankruptcy of those who abandon the cause of equality. His self-ejection validates that the ANC is on the right path: a path that prizes principle over position and loyalty to the people over loyalty to privilege.”

But Zille said the DA is expecting even more people to desert the ANC in the Western Cape. “This is just the tip of a growing avalanche in the ANC that will gather momentum in the months ahead. In fact, I’m prepared to predict that the ANC will continue to disintegrate in this province. Its polling is the lowest it’s ever been,” she said.

“As politics realigns, some will go to the racial nationalists’ authoritarian parties, amongst which is the PA. Others, who are democrats and want the rule of law and due process and inclusion, will come to the DA — and Neville is one of those.”

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