Democratic Alliance (DA), South African political party formed in 2000 through the merger of the Democratic Party, the New National Party (see National Party), and the Federal Alliance. The Democratic Alliance became the official opposition party to the African National Congress (ANC), though the New National Party withdrew from the alliance the following year.
The Democratic Alliance traces its ancestry through the Democratic Party, a political party established in 1989 by the merger of the Progressive Federal Party with two smaller liberal parties, the National Democratic Movement and the Independent Party. The Democratic Party supported full voting and other civil rights for South Africa’s black majority and constitutional changes toward that end. Following the dismantling of the apartheid system, South Africa held its first election by universal suffrage in 1994, which resulted in the country’s first multiethnic government. The Democratic Party won seven seats in the National Assembly, finishing far behind the ANC. In 1999, however, the Democratic Party won 38 seats and became the second largest party in the legislature. The Democratic Party subsequently proclaimed itself the party with the “guts to fight back,” and its leader, Tony Leon, cultivated a belligerent attitude toward the ruling ANC.
In an effort to present a more effective opposition to the ANC, the Democratic Party joined with the New National Party and the Federal Alliance in 2000 to form the DA. The union between the three would prove to be short-lived, however, as the New National Party left the alliance in 2001 and tied its fortunes to the ANC while the other two parties remained united as the DA.
The DA built its electoral base over subsequent years, and it had particular success in Cape Town. In March 2006 the party scored a major victory in local elections: DA spokesperson Helen Zille became mayor of Cape Town, and the DA won control of the Cape Town metropolitan council at the head of a multiparty coalition. The following year Tony Leon stepped down as party leader, and Zille succeeded him (while remaining mayor of Cape Town).
In the 2009 elections the DA finished in second place with almost 17 percent of the national vote, far behind the victorious ANC. The DA performed strongly in the Western Cape, however—taking almost 49 percent of the vote in that province and marking the first time since 1999 that the Western Cape was not dominated by the ANC—and Zille became the premier of the province. The party placed second in Gauteng province, becoming the official opposition party there.
In 2010 the DA and another opposition party, the Independent Democrats (ID), headed by Patricia de Lille, announced that the two parties would merge by the 2014 national and provincial elections, with the DA absorbing the ID. In early 2014 the DA looked poised to absorb another opposition party, the nascent Agang SA, headed by Mamphela Ramphele, but that potential merger quickly collapsed.
The DA expanded its presence on both the national and provincial levels in the 2014 elections. The party finished in second place behind the ANC in the national poll again but won more than 22 percent of the vote, a higher percentage than in 2009. The DA dominated the Western Cape once more, this time with almost 60 percent of the vote, and it rose to the position of being the official opposition party in six other provinces.
Zille did not stand for reelection as leader of the DA at the party’s federal congress on May 9–10, 2015. She was succeeded by Mmusi Maimane, the DA’s parliamentary spokesperson. He was the first black African to be elected leader of the DA.