DA appoints administrators as interim leaders
Dr Anneke Lotriet and James Masango have been tasked as administrators by the DA Executive Committee to manage the office of the DA in the province until an elective congress has been held and a new executive be elected in the province.
Lotriet and Masango, both seasoned politicians, started on 18 March with their administrative duties in Polokwane. During an interview with Lotriet, she said that the previous leadership’s term has expired, but the two administrators have taken over the role of the leadership until new leaders have been elected.
“The Limpopo elective congress will not take place before the local government elections later this year,” Lotriet told our journalist. “The congress will probably take place next year only.”
She assured our journalist that everything is functioning as normal in the province. She said she was happy that a date for the local government elections has been announced and planning can continue for the party to contest the elections.
Lotriet is a DA member of Parliament serving as the Shadow Minister of Science and Technology and Chairperson of the DA Parliamentary Caucus, and has previously served as Acting Leader of the Opposition and as the DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education. She is also the provincial chairperson of the DA in the Free State.
Masango comes from Mpumalanga and currently serves in the national leadership as deputy chairperson of the Federal Council. He is the former leader of the opposition in the Mpumalanga provincial legislature, and was also formerly a member of Parliament’s National Assembly (MP), where he served as the Chairperson of Caucus. He first became a DA MP in 2004, serving on the Sport and Recreation and Housing portfolio committees, and was the Shadow Deputy Minister of Defense and Military Veterans. Masango was re-elected to Parliament in 2009 and was appointed as the Shadow Minister of Public Works until 2012. He also served as Chairperson of the DA caucus. After a stint in the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature, he went back to the National Assembly in 2014, and served as the Deputy Shadow Minister of Public Works between 2014 and 2015. He was elected deputy provincial chairperson for the DA in Mpumalanga in 2000, and became provincial chairperson in 2004, a position he held for 11 years. He was Provincial Leader from 2015. Following his election as Provincial Leader, Masango opted to return to the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature, where he served as DA Caucus Leader and Leader of the official opposition.
He retired from active politics following the 2019 election, but in late 2020 returned to stand uncontested as one of the two deputy chairpersons of the Federal Council at the party’s elective congress, where he assumed duties in this post on 1 November 2020.
Spokesperson for the DA, Sisiwe Gwarube, said with regards to the Federal Legal Commission’s investigation into allegations made against the former Limpopo Leader, Jacques Smalle, that the Federal Executive has recently been briefed on the status of the disciplinary process and that it was still underway.
