WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-11-11 Time: 08:00:10 Posted By: Jan
By Gaye Davis
The Democratic Alliance plans to re-launch itself this weekend in a bid to make the party attractive to the thousands of South Africans it believes share its values, but don’t vote for the party. And in a fundamental shift, the party aims to market itself no longer as feisty opposition, but as a party ready to govern the country from 2014.
Briefing journalists at parliament on Monday, DA leader Helen Zille said Saturday’s re-launch at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg would be “the most significant event” in the party’s history.
She would not give details of what it would entail, but said it was the culmination of “an internal process of self-examination” and an assessment of how the DA presented itself and how it was perceived by voters, given the effects of “a divided past”.
The DA had long been aware that wooing black voters was the only way to increase its share of the vote, but had struggled to get its message heard.
“The DA has significant potential among voters who share our values but who have not historically supported us,” Zille said.
New research commissioned by the party showed voters of all races were looking for a political re-alignment, where parties and people sharing the same values came together to forge an open society with equal opportunities, “as opposed to a closed, patronage-driven society under the ANC”.
“We are determined to do whatever possible to overcome these barriers, transcend race and enable all South Africans who share our values to give us their support,” Zille said.
The party will fight elections next year with an important trump card: its track record in governing Cape Town since the 2006 local government elections saw the ANC forced to make way for a DA-led multi-party coalition.
Other governing coalitions were forged in smaller cities and towns in the Western Cape.
Given the shifts in the political landscape, Zille sees no reason why there couldn’t be a change of national government through the ballot box.
The party’s experience in ruling Cape Town and managing fragile and often fractious coalitions will stand the party in good stead, Zille believes.
She said the DA aimed to win at least one or – possibly in a coalition – even two provinces in 2009, and would seek to win “many major cities” and towns in the 2011 local government elections.
“Our plan is to become the government in 2014,” Zille told the briefing.
She said exit interviews conducted by the party at voter registration stations showed people’s “appetite for change”, with “five times as many” DA supporters registering as did during the first registration weekend before the 2004 election, but did not give precise figures.
“People want change and they are prepared to go to the polls in 2009 to be part of the change they want to see,” Zille said.
The South African Institute of Race Relations has predicted the DA faces more of a threat than the ANC from the new party to be launched by Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa, yet Zille does not agree.
“The Congress of the People is more likely to give space for ANC people to reposition themselves – it is the ANC, not the DA which is disintegrating,” Zille said.
Party strategist, MP Ryan Coetzee, said the new party could help the DA.
This because it reinforced a sense that a weakened ANC would not be automatically win everywhere, especially as the DA’s support base was “solid and growing”.