Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen said on Wednesday that his party is certain that the African National Congress (ANC) will lose Gauteng in the 2024 national elections.

He announced the party’s Gauteng provincial leader Solly Msimanga as its Premier candidate for the province.

Msimanga has been a Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature since 2019, having previously served between 2014 and 2016. He was the Executive Mayor of Tshwane from 2016 to 2019 and the DA provincial chairperson from 2014 to 2017. He was the DA’s Gauteng Premier candidate for the 2019 elections.

Steenhuisen was speaking in Johannesburg, where he pointed out that Gauteng is the economic and political heartland of South Africa and home to one-third of the country’s total economy.

“While the DA made enormous strides in this province over the years, the outcome of provincial elections were previously always a fait accompli. In all previous elections, we knew that the ANC would get more than 50% and that the Premier would come from the ANC. But those days are long gone,” he said.

He went on to state that it was not enough that the DA knew that the ANC would lose Gauteng next year.

“Our job is to make sure that the DA wins power in Gauteng next year. Our job is to make sure that the candidate we are announcing today is inaugurated as Gauteng Premier two weeks after next year’s election,” he said.

He highlighted that the DA’s latest research showed that, together with the party’s partners in the Multi-Party Charter, these political parties were already polling as high as 45% in Gauteng.

He noted that if the DA could grow beyond the 27% of votes it received in Gauteng during the 2019 elections, then the Moonshot Pact was guaranteed to succeed in the province.

He warned that the DA must “not be under any illusions about the desperation of the ANC”.

He claimed that Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi had already gone on record to say his plan was to form a “Doomsday Coalition” between the ANC, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Patriotic Alliance (PA) to cling to power next year.

Steenhuisen noted that allowing this to happen would leave Gauteng beyond repair.

“We have already seen what happens when the Doomsday Coalition comes to power. The unholy alliance between the ANC, EFF and PA has utterly destroyed Johannesburg,” he said.

Steenhuisen said there were currently no less than 18 different parties in the Joburg Council. Eight of these parties have only one seat each, he said, saying he believed that it was not the way to run a city – much less a whole province.

“This is exactly why the DA has tabled a motion to dissolve the entire Johannesburg Council, so that we can hold fresh by-elections to elect a new, less fragmented and more cohesive city government,” he explained.

He called on every party represented in the Joburg Council to put residents first by supporting the DA’s motion for a dissolution.