John Steenhuisen trumpeted his success as DA leader while announcing he wouldn't stand for re-election in April.

Democratic Alliance leader and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen put on a brave face on Wednesday, 4 February 2026, doing his best to project that he wasn't pushed out of the party's leadership race.

In a carefully choreographed appearance at the Riverside Hotel in Durban, an emotional Steenhuisen entered a small hall occupied by media and about 50 party loyalists.

He delivered a well-rehearsed speech, giving himself credit for leading the DA into a new era and announced that he wouldn't be standing for re-election as party leader in April.

He said he would stay on as agriculture minister to devote himself to ending the foot-and-mouth disease crisis.

At the end of his 20-minute oratory, Steenhuisen promptly left the building, leaving journalists, primed with questions, bemused.

Quizzed on why he didn't take questions, Steenhuisen's friend and campaign manager, Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson, said: "The speech said all he needed to say."

Steenhuisen said it was a "mission accomplished" for him.

He left having delivered the "moonshot pact" that ushered in the Government of National Unity (GNU) and kept out the "Doomsday Coalition" (a potential alliance between the ANC, MK party and Economic Freedom Fighters).

He said that for...