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Maimane elected leader of S. Africa's main opposition party

Xinhua, May 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

South Africa's main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) on Sunday elected Mmusi Maimane as its new leader, replacing Hellen Zille.

The DA held its 6th Federal Congress on May 9-10 in Nelson Mandela Bay, Port Elezabeth to elect its new leader, federal chairperson, and three deputy federal chairpersons.

"Elections were conducted by secret ballot, and voting was done using the single transferable voting system," the DA said in a statement.

Speaking before his election, Maimane said, "Our party remains strong, even when we disagree with each other, because it is built on a rock solid foundation of shared values."

He summed up the DA's values with three words: freedom, fairness and opportunity.

Maimane said that when the DA was formed in 1994 led by Tony Leon, it was a tiny suburban party, but in just 10 years, the party increased its support from 1.7 percent to 12 percent.

"Her (Helen Zille) resolute commitment to diversify the party's leadership, membership and support base was one of the reasons we were able to double our votes in her eight years as leader – from 1.9 million to just over 4 million," Maimane said.

The next part of the DA story still needs to be written, he said.

"I want it to be the story of how the DA challenged for power at a national level and won," he added. Endi