Mbali Ntuli’s civil society organisation Ground Work Collective has been so successful that it has found the funding to put 4,000 election observers in place for the May 29 poll
24 April 2024 - 11:45
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In 2020, a young Mbali Ntuli took on the might of the DA establishment and ran for the leadership of the party against John Steenhuisen.
Not unexpectedly, she lost and not long afterwards branched out on her own — not, like many of the black leaders who left the DA after the last general election, to start her own party or to join another one but to start a civil society organisation.
She founded the Ground Work Collective and started simply doing what she loves — civic work in communities around the country though mainly in her native KwaZulu-Natal.
So successful has she been that Ground Work has found the funding to put 4,000 election observers in place for the May 29 poll.
“A lot of the stuff that I said when I ran for the DA leadership was what I wanted to do anyway,” she tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts From the Edge.
“It would have been great to do it with a big institution and a big machine because I think it is the kind of stuff South Africans really want … I didn’t join another party and I didn’t start one. I wanted to show that I could go back into communities and continue the work that I’ve been doing for two decades. And I put a lot of my own money in initially because people don’t really believe politicians and obviously a big part of the criticism I received when I ran for the DA leadership was that I was young and inexperienced, which was absolutely not true, so for me, this was also a big “Fuck you. I could do it!”
The discussion centres on how politics works in KZN. These are Ntuli’s streets after all…
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
PODCAST: The power of one tough Zulu
Mbali Ntuli’s civil society organisation Ground Work Collective has been so successful that it has found the funding to put 4,000 election observers in place for the May 29 poll
In 2020, a young Mbali Ntuli took on the might of the DA establishment and ran for the leadership of the party against John Steenhuisen.
Not unexpectedly, she lost and not long afterwards branched out on her own — not, like many of the black leaders who left the DA after the last general election, to start her own party or to join another one but to start a civil society organisation.
She founded the Ground Work Collective and started simply doing what she loves — civic work in communities around the country though mainly in her native KwaZulu-Natal.
So successful has she been that Ground Work has found the funding to put 4,000 election observers in place for the May 29 poll.
“A lot of the stuff that I said when I ran for the DA leadership was what I wanted to do anyway,” she tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts From the Edge.
“It would have been great to do it with a big institution and a big machine because I think it is the kind of stuff South Africans really want … I didn’t join another party and I didn’t start one. I wanted to show that I could go back into communities and continue the work that I’ve been doing for two decades. And I put a lot of my own money in initially because people don’t really believe politicians and obviously a big part of the criticism I received when I ran for the DA leadership was that I was young and inexperienced, which was absolutely not true, so for me, this was also a big “Fuck you. I could do it!”
The discussion centres on how politics works in KZN. These are Ntuli’s streets after all…
Join the discussion:
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Also read:
Will 2024 be the DA’s year?
Why can’t the DA capitalise on a broken ANC?
Inside the big DA showdown
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