Irate DA leader quits party during TimesLIVE interview, joins ActionSA

Another week, another prominent DA resignation.

This week it was the turn of the party’s former leader in the Northern Cape, Andrew Louw, who’s also a former member of the National Assembly.

He did so in dramatic fashion, opting to abruptly quit the DA and defect to Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA in the middle of an interview with TimesLIVE Premium.

This was just hours after the DA announced it had placed Louw on suspension, along with his wife Mariam Louw and Grantham Steenkamp, for allegedly recruiting other DA members to cross the floor with them to ActionSA.

During the interview to discuss his suspension, an irate Louw disclosed he was already downloading and filling in an ActionSA membership form, saying he no longer felt welcome in the DA.

Louw was due to face an internal DA probe, as he had denied the allegations levelled against him and had challenged the party to point out the people he had recruited into ActionSA.

“After today, Thursday August 25, I think I’ve had enough. As we speak, I am busy on the website joining ActionSA as a member, voluntarily so. I am joining ActionSA as a member because I am being accused for way too long and this needs to come to an end now,” Louw said.

“In fact, after doing this I am going to send you my membership. I am going to download it and I am going to send it to you on WhatsApp, if you don’t mind.”

Louw had not sent the membership form by the time of publishing and this article will be updated when he does.

According to Louw, the DA is no longer the party he joined almost two decades ago.

“The DA has given me opportunities that I will always be grateful for, that I will always speak about at any given time. But the way in which the party is going now I can definitely not identify myself with it. I am sorry,” he said.

Today I’ve decided officially now [to leave] because I can see now that I am not welcome in the DA any more. The writing is on the wall ... and I do not want to overstay my welcome. As a result let me leave the DA in peace with their party and move on.

—  Andrew Louw, former DA member

“The way things are in the party, it is clear that some of us are not welcome any more in the DA for reasons best known to themselves.”

Louw alleged that as a provincial leader, he would charge both black and white people, but only cases of black people would be taken up for disciplinary processes. He alleged “the charges” of white party members “would disappear in the middle of nowhere”.

Louw made an example of a Kimberley councillor who had reportedly been charged 17 times. “[But] she never appeared once,” he said. 

TimesLIVE Premium approached DA spokesperson Cilliers Brink for comment.

Brink said the allegations Louw faced were so serious that the party had to suspend his membership.

“Instead of facing a DA disciplinary hearing, he has decided to defect to another party,” Brink said.

“This is not the conduct of a person who is motivated by conviction, so we also don’t believe his after-the-fact story and neither should anyone else.”

Without mentioning them by name, Brink said leaders who have questions to answer seem to be defecting to ActionSA.

“ActionSA is becoming the halfway house of those facing disciplinary cases in other parties, to such an extent that they are avoiding internal [disciplinary processes] ,” he said. 

Louw joins a growing list of senior DA members who have recently quit the party over unhappiness around its current political direction and identity. These include Makashule Gana, Mbali Ntuli, Bongani Baloyi and Phumzile Van Damme.

Last Monday, former DA leader in the Free State Patricia Kopane also quit the DA, saying she could no longer identify with the party.

Louw said he had not communicated his decision to leave the DA to the party’s leadership as he had taken the decision today.

“I’ve decided officially now [to leave] because I can see now that I am not welcome in the DA any more. The writing is on the wall,” he said.

“I do not want to overstay my welcome. As a result, let me leave the DA in peace with their party and move on.”