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Today I am pleased to announce that Michael Shackleton, the DA’s Gauteng North Regional Deputy Chairperson, has resigned from the Democratic Alliance to join ActionSA.

Michael is 34 years old, and yet, has already risen to the rank of Deputy Chairperson of the Tshwane Region. He has served as a member of the National Assembly, a member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature as Shadow MEC for Community Safety and as a Tshwane City Councillor. 

He holds an LLB, a Masters in Constitutional and Administrative Law, is busy completing another Masters in Public Administration, has received the highest accolades in various international organisations including Toastmasters International (as a Distinguished Toastmaster) and is a Partner at a law firm. He has been named in the 100 Young Mandelas by News 24 and will be taking up the role of implementing ActionSA’s strategic litigation. 

Michael’s reasons for leaving the DA are not dissimilar to that of many others who have left the DA or those who are still attempting to leave the DA.

Specifically, the reasons cited by Michael Shackleton include the regression of the DA as an inclusive home for all South Africans and its abandonment of being an electoral alternative to the ANC. 

Of particular interest are reasons which are entirely unique to the individual in question.

Michael Shackleton is a resident of Ward 96 in Tshwane where a by-election is taking place on 4 May 2022. In this respect, he has made the following remarks:

”One of the reasons why I resigned is because of how the DA has treated our community [Ward 96] since 2016 and now in this by-election. 

After all, how can you be part of a party that mistreats your own community where you live?

I have witnessed how the DA did nothing to support the previous Councillor, Hannes Coetzee. 

I have witnessed how the DA did nothing to support his calls to investigate the corruption of the tender for the Rooiwal Treatment Plant. 

I have witnessed how DA Leaders were nowhere to be found when the Pyramid substation burnt down and when Hannes Coetzee was working with City technicians through many nights to restore electricity. 

I witnessed how the DA has put forward a candidate for this by-election who did not come first in their candidate selection process. He was just the only candidate who lived in the ward. 

Now, when there is a by-election happening in our ward, suddenly, it is like the DA realized for the first time that my ward and, my community, existed. 

Suddenly, Mayor Randall Williams has cared enough to come into our community and speak about the service delivery needs of our ward. 

Suddenly, John Steenhuisen and Helen Zille are in our ward every other day – pretending that they care about this ward. But where were they? Where were they over the last 6 years? Where were they when our ward needed them?

The answer is that they were nowhere to be found and, I believe, they will be nowhere to be found again for the residents of this ward after the by-election.” Click here for the video.

The fact that the Deputy Chairperson of the DA in Tshwane is willing to resign as a member and as public representative of the Party that he served for 14 years, serves to demonstrate the extent to which the residents of ward 96 have been mistreated and failed by the DA. 

ActionSA is proud to be attracting South Africans of the calibre of Michael Shackleton regularly since the start of 2022. This speaks both to ActionSA’s continued rise within South African politics as well as the continued collapse of the long-established political parties.

I am pleased to report to South Africans that we have a number of prominent South Africans, across the political spectrum as well as professional South Africans without prior political histories, who will be announced in the coming weeks and months.

Issued by ActionSA President  Herman Mashaba