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The DA wrapped up its elective congress this past weekend, with John Steenhuisen and Helen Zille emerging as two of the big winners.

Steenhuisen officially became the party’s federal leader, crushing challenger Mbali Ntuli with more than 80% of the votes.

Zille was re-elected as federal council chairperson, which is the party’s second most powerful position.

As you can imagine, the results, and especially the margin by which Steenhuisen defeated Ntuli, raised many eyebrows.

A number of analysts went as far as to say that it could sink the DA, alienating black and coloured voters whilst the party loses white voters to the Freedom Front Plus.

Zapiro has had the knives out for Helen Zille for a while now (his ‘Wrecking Ball’ cartoon was a classic), so you knew he was going to come hard at the recent elective congress results.

That he did, with this cartoon on the Daily Maverick, titled ‘Shades of Pale’:

I don’t think we need to help you unpack that one.

In the wake of this weekend’s results, City of Johannesburg councillor and regional youth leader, Lincoln Machaba, resigned from the DA, calling the party “Freedom Front Minus”.

Despite this, the new Mayor of Tshwane, Randall Williams, says the party is more united now than ever.

We may have to wait until next year’s local government election to see if voters are buying it.

[source:dailymaverick]