In tell-all book, Mmusi Maimane lifts lid on his DA exit
In it, he names Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis as a force behind a deliberate fightback campaign to drive him out of the top job.
Mmusi Maimane in conversation with Daily Maverick's Rebecca Davis at the launch of his book, 'Dare to believe: Why I could not stay in the DA', in Cape Town on 23 May 2024 Picture: Lindsay Dentlinger/Eyewitness News
CAPE TOWN - Almost five years since resigning as Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, Mmusi Maimane has blown the lid on why he left the party that catapulted him onto the political stage.
His book, Dare to believe: Why I could not stay in the DA was launched in Cape Town on Thursday night.
In it, he names Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis as a force behind a deliberate fightback campaign to drive him out of the top job.
Now the leader of his own party, Build One South Africa, Maimane said that while he’s sad that he was betrayed by party members he believed to be his friends, he’s not bitter because of the opportunities the party gave him.
Just six days before he’s due to test his new party’s prowess at the ballot box for the first time, Maimane is taking stock of his life and his political career so far.
In a chapter of his new book, titled The horror of September, Maimane lays bear the events in 2019 that led to his resignation.
Former Joburg Mayor Herman Mashaba and ex-Nelson Mandela Bay mayor, Athol Trollip, also resigned.
He said that a "coalition of the aggrieved" was formed in a jostle for positions and in resistance to transformation, which included former MPs Hill-Lewis and Mike Waters.
He alleges Hill-Lewis joined forces with former leaders, Tony Leon and Helen Zille, and current leader, John Steenhuisen, to launch personal attacks on him.
Maimane added that former DA spokesperson, Gavin Davis, allegedly colluded with the Rapport newspaper to plant stories that would discredit him.
"It felt like this was the September that the few individuals who became the club of this fightback campaign had orchestrated these attacks. These were people who were close to me, they had access to my office, they had access to my life and to read about it in that way, was deeply, deeply painful."
By releasing a tell-all book just days before the elections, Maimane said it was not intended to be a sleight on the DA, but rather to clear the decks for the next chapter and the future of Build One South Africa.