Democratic Alliance (South Africa)

The Democratic Alliance (DA; Afrikaans: Demokratiese Alliansie) is a South African political party and the official opposition to the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The party is broadly centrist, and has been attributed both centre-left and centre-right policies. It is a member of Liberal International and the Africa Liberal Network. The DA traces its roots to the founding of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party in 1959, with many mergers and name changes between that time and the present. The DA ideologically shows a variety of liberal tendencies, including social liberalism, classical liberalism, and conservative liberalism.

The current leader of the party is John Steenhuisen, who was announced as the new leader on 1 November 2020 after the party's Federal Congress. He had previously acted as the interim leader of the party from November 2019 to November 2020. Helen Zille is chairperson of both the Federal Council and the Federal Executive, the highest decision-making structures of the party. In addition to governing several major metropolitan municipalities, the DA has been governing the Western Cape, one of South Africa's nine provinces, since the 2009 general election, having won a bigger majority at the election in 2014, but slightly losing support in the 2019 election. As of 2014, the party draws its support predominantly from Afrikaans- and English-speaking people (>80% of its voters), people aged over 35 (>65%), and white people (>50%), as well as the Indian and Coloured communities.