Within a month of its existence, former Cape Town mayor Patricia De Lille says her new political party, called Good, is now sitting with 60 000 signed-up supporters, with the majority of them coming from Gauteng.
“Our total is close to 60 000 supporters. We have numbers in all nine provinces, we have volunteers and facilitators in each province. People use our website to join our party.
“I must say most of our supporters come from Gauteng, followed by the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and North West,” said De Lille.
A few weeks after stepping down as mayor and resigning as a member of the DA, De Lille took a few by surprise when she announced that she would be launching a new party.
Leaving the DA, De Lille was followed by nine councillors who resigned from the Cape Town City Council. She, however, said the former supporters were joining her new party because they supported the values she stood for.
“We are not taking anybody from other political parties. We are saying to them, if you want to join our party you must resign from whichever organisation you come from and join us because you support the values of the party and its policies.
“We don’t make it an issue that many members of the DA have joined us. That is an old style of politics. We are specifically looking for young South Africans,” said De Lille.
De Lille said her latest venture was now preparing to contest the 2019 elections in all provinces.
Good will not be the only newcomer contesting for the first time. The Independent Electoral Commission has indicated that about 270 parties had registered to take part in the 2019 general elections.