Former Democratic Alliance (DA) federal chairperson and Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip on Wednesday joined ActionSA, saying his longing for active change is the main reason he decided to join the party.

ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont revealed Trollip as a new addition to the party at a press conference at the Radisson Blu Hotel Port Elizabeth in Gqeberha.

Trollip will be taking up the role as the Party’s Eastern Cape provincial chairperson.

Trollip left the opposition party in 2019 shortly after leader Mmusi Maimane resigned.

Two weeks ago the party revealed former DA Midvaal mayor Bongani Baloyi as a new addition.

“Why am I joining ActionSA? I want to see real democratic change happening in South Africa in my age  . . . I realised that change does not happen on its own. The only thing that happens on its own with regards to change is the change of seasons, tides and the different between night and day,” he said.

He added that all change, especially political changes, came with action.

"I've got a fire in my belly, a political fire in my belly, that is very difficult to ignore. It's been nagging me. I have always been asking myself if I had done enough. When Herman Mashaba approached me, I decided to put that nagging to bed,” he explained.

Mashaba said today signalled ActionSA's expansion into the Eastern Cape and the beginning of Project 2024 in a province that was desperate for something new.

He stated that the significance of this moment lay in its intent to build leadership in the nine provinces of the country that could activate the party’s structures ahead of the 2024 national and provincial election.

“After meeting our structures in the Eastern Cape yesterday, it is clear that our teams are rearing to go and are very pleased to work under Athol’s leadership,” he said.

Mashaba explained that much of what makes Trollip an asset to ActionSA and the project the party is embarking upon, cannot be contained in a resume.  He said Trollip was a brave South African that you came to respect immediately when you met him. “He is principled and honest and one of those rare type of people in politics who says what he means and means what he says.”

He said in their discussions ahead of Trollip joining ActionSA, it was evident that he and Trollip shared a common appreciation of the duty that they had to serve South Africa in the task of removing the African National Congress in 2024.