ActionSA welcomed former Democratic Alliance (DA) Midvaal mayor Bongani Baloyi to its ranks on Monday.

Baloyi left the DA in December last year, after 14 years with the party and having been announced as the DA’s Gauteng premier candidate for 2024. 

Baloyi become the youngest mayor when he took the reins at Midvaal in 2013. 

Under his stewardship, which ended after the 2021 local government elections, Midvaal municipality received seven clean audits and was ranked the top-performing municipality.

He will serve on ActionSA’s Senate, the party’s highest decision-making body.

“Baloyi’s joining of ActionSA does not take place in a vacuum. The results achieved by ActionSA have positioned the party such that we have been overwhelmed by South Africans joining our ranks. I am informed that our party membership doubled in the week following the elections,” said ActionSA president Herman Mashaba.

Mashaba said Baloyi remained committed to see out his term of office for the people of Midvaal. 

Baloyi said he was proud of his record with the DA and of the work that he had achieved.

“I am also proud of my 10 years as the mayor of Midvaal and I must extend my sincere appreciation to the community of Midvaal who are the real heroes of my tenure as executive mayor,” he added.

Baloyi explained that he was not joining ActionSA out of anger or disappointment.

“I must state from the outset that my joining ActionSA is not out of anger or out of disappointment, it's actually because of the hope they are invoking. I join ActionSA knowing very well the work that lies ahead for all of us, this is a very significant moment in our country,” he said.

Baloyi added that he believed there was a realignment of the country’s politics where diverse South Africans of all capabilities needed to join hands and work together, because there was “one enemy and that enemy is the African National Congress”, he said.