Zille: DA has taken a knock but we will recover
The problem in the DA was one of leadership, not race, and the party had to get that right, newly elected federal council chairperson Helen Zille has told the Cape Town Press Club.
"It's not an easy thing to fix," she said.
Zille believed the resignations of Mmusi Maimane as federal leader, Athol Trollip as federal chairperson and Herman Mashaba as Johannesburg mayor had not caused a crisis in the party.
Rather, she said, their resignations had followed a process of identifying and analysing the problems the party were facing, which culminated in a review report by Ryan Coetzee, Tony Leon and Michiel le Roux.
"The loss across the board in by-elections was a symptom of our problems, not a cause, and the critical conclusion was that the current leadership was not capable of leading the DA out of this crisis.