Democratic Alliance (South Africa)

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is a liberal South African political party. The party has been the second-largest in South Africa since its foundation in 2000. The DA's ideology has been associated with both centrist and centre-right policies.

The party, considered to be South Africa's most diverse in terms of membership and voters, draws its support predominantly from Afrikaans and English speakers, people aged over 35, as well as white South Africans, Indian communities, and Coloured communities.

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 has a variety of ideologically liberal tendencies, including neoliberalism, social liberalism, classical liberalism, and conservative liberalism.

The current leader of the party is John Steenhuisen, who assumed leadership 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. In February 2026, Steenhuisen announced he would step down as Leader of the DA, to focus solely on his role as the country's Minister of Agriculture. The move was viewed as paving the way for popular Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis to run for the position of DA Leader, should he wish to.

Long-serving South African activist and politician Helen Zille is Chairperson of both the Federal Council and the Federal Executive, the highest decision-making structures of the party. She will be stepping down from these roles to focus on her run for Mayor of Johannesburg, during the 2026 South African municipal elections.

In the aftermath of the 2024 general election, the DA entered into a ruling grand coalition with the African National Congress (ANC) and various other parties, called a government of national unity, formed by ten parties holding a combined 287 seats in the National Assembly of South Africa (72%).

The DA has governed Cape Town, South Africa's legislative capital and second-largest city by population, with a majority since the 2006 municipal elections. The party has also governed the Western Cape, one of the country's nine provinces, with a majority since the 2009 general election.