Never take your youth for granted: the DA’s Young Leaders Program

In 2007, a group of fresh-faced upstarts in the DA’s ranks called the ‘Young Guns’ were banded together for the first time. In November 2023, the party graduated its 17th cohort from its now-formalized DA Young Leaders Program: a prestigious year-long annual program for 20 young people under the age of 35 who have been tipped as future party and country leaders. The DA is the only party with a formal program to develop its own timber, so to speak, and the fruits of the program are being reaped as the now considerable pool of alumni moves through, with key roles filled inside the DA and government. Outside of politics, a core of professionals is implementing the DA’s liberal values in civil society and supplying time, expertise, and money back into the party.

Many of the young luminaries in the DA’s ranks can trace common roots back to this program. Take 34-year-old Siviwe Gwarube, for example, the DA’s Chief Whip and a vociferously outspoken critic of government’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic in her role as the DA’s Shadow Minister for Health. Three of the country’s youngest mayors – Geordin Hill-Lewis (Cape Town), Chris Pappas (uMngeni), and Cilliers Brink (Tshwane) – are proud alumni and also some of the most universally admired political leaders in the country. Or Liam Jacobs, the DA Students Organization head and a newly elected Member of Parliament and a Gen-Z representative at just 23. Ashor Sarupen at 35 is currently the party’s first deputy chairperson of the DA’s Federal Council, a Member of Parliament, and was the deputy campaign manager for these past elections. Mat Cuthbert, 32, is a second-term MP who leads as the party’s head of policy, entrusted with crafting the party’s electoral blueprints. Emma Powell, 37, was a previous Chief of Staff to the Chief Whip and is now a second-term MP and Shadow Minister of International Relations and Cooperation. Or Solly Msimanga, now 43, the party’s candidate for Premier of Gauteng and an ex-Executive Mayor of Tshwane.

Those are just some in a raft of entrenched young politicians and DA Young Leader Program beneficiaries in leadership positions. The DA is backing its young people.

There were several commentators during the lead up to our last elections bemoaning the youth’s apathy towards politics. After 30 years under the ANC, it’s not difficult to sympathize with their attitude. Politics and politicians have failed them, and they have not felt that their interests have been represented. Case in point, our last Minister of Women, Youth, and People with Disabilities, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, finally retired at 75. President Ramaphosa only had one member of his previous cabinet aged 40 or less, Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola, under whose watch Thabo Bester became a Netflix special-worthy prison escapee and the Gupta’s extradition was bungled while almost nothing was made of the damning Zondo report and those indicted.

South Africa is a young country, with a median age of 28 years. This means that over half of our population were born in the new post-apartheid South Africa and have only known an ANC government, a generation characterized by Ramaphosa through the figurative story of ‘Tintswalo’. In that time, average unemployment has skyrocketed from 20% to 33%, but our youth generation of Tintswalos suffer an even worse situation of over 45% unemployment. Yet, our youth are reluctant to participate in democratic processes. South Africans between 15 and 34 years of age constitute 35% of our population, yet they are underrepresented in our national voters roll. By sheer numbers, they should be the most influential demographic in our electorate, yet disillusionment and apathy have kept them away from the ballot boxes. The youth have the most to gain through positive changes in the country, but also have the most to lose as those facing a protracted bleak future as they move through their young adulthood failing to establish themselves.

Getting young people interested and involved in politics is essential to moving our country forwards. Young people must be represented and must be central to South Africa’s turnaround plan if it is to be socially and economically sustainable. Without putting young people into leadership and making them central to policy, we cannot achieve the growth we need.

I am 32. I am not from a political background. I didn’t study politics, I didn’t engage in youth or university political structures, and apart from faithfully voting I haven’t otherwise been involved. It was with some surprise, then, that I was accepted onto the 2023 DA Young Leaders Program after the rigorous application processes. Perhaps it was in my favour that I had no clue who the acclaimed Members of Parliament were that had assembled to grill me in the final interviews. I suffered less nervousness not having a perceived chance of progressing, too. When asked why I wanted the opportunity, I simply answered that I’d had enough of working with hapless government entities and seeing the country brought to its knees by unscrupulous politicians, and I wanted to see how I could be part of the solution.

As I exited the venue, I caught the sounds of one panel member saying, “That guy reminds me of Tony Leon”. I wasn’t even sure if that was a good thing, given how political legacies rise and fall in the public eye and behind closed doors. I resigned myself to waiting to hear and although I thought I had acquitted myself well and honestly, I didn’t have a chance given how few positions must be allocated to white males in this current climate.

I was mistaken, and refreshingly so. When I got the call some six weeks later, having long given up on waiting to hear back, I was shocked. I was even more astonished when I saw the course register – we were a diverse group, but no specific attention had been paid to the representation of colour, gender, or creed – we were just the best of the bunch. I was soon to learn that the DA takes non-racialism seriously. This is not to say that colour doesn’t exist, but that it is not defining of the individual, their worthiness, their ability, or any other extension that was once drawn from race in our collective haunting past. Each of our 20 candidates were selected based on the potential judged from their essays, their videos, their testing, and finally their interviews. Nothing more, nothing less. Those who deserved the opportunity and would use it well were rewarded. Worthy candidates were not overlooked in favour of optics or ratios. It was the first of many eye-openers for me during the year.

During the year, the party puts the Young Leaders through a series of development opportunities. Yet another common misconception among the group was that this was a primarily political course and we would be learning about the tenets of liberalism, parliamentary procedure, voter canvassing, and other hardcore political skills. Yes, we touched on each of those and more, but just scratched the surface leaving those learnings for the future. Most of the time was spent on developing each individual, identifying strengths and weaknesses, making available mentors and coaches to develop our leadership style and toolkits, identifying and understanding our personality types and those of others, and working on communication skills from conflict to campaigning. The thesis is that to understand, manage, and lead others, you must first be comfortable doing so for yourself.

At our final graduation, I followed John Steenhuisen on the speaker list in representing our class. To be on the same bill a year before was a laughable proposition. Yet, the Young Leaders Program has opened all sorts of doors I had never even contemplated.

My experience in the DA’s structures culminated in my swearing in as a Member of Parliament, just 18 months after taking up a spot on the party’s accelerator program. After 7 years of experience in the conservation and tourism NGO space, I am bringing my skills and expertise to parliament.

It is significant that this year’s cohort of public representatives have begun their terms just two days out from our national Youth Day. Like the youth of Soweto in 1976, we again need our young people to stand up and initiate positive change for lives of ordinary South Africans. I am proud, honoured, and humbled to be among a strong cohort of young people represented in our political structures.