[16][17] The party draws its support predominantly from Afrikaans and English speakers, people aged over 35, and white South Africans, as well as the Indian and Coloured communities.

Although the Democratic Alliance in its present form is fairly new, its roots can be traced far back in South African political history, through a complex sequence of splits and mergers.

During this time, the party was led by liberal-minded opponents of Apartheid, such as Jan Steytler, Helen Suzman, Zach de Beer, Colin Eglin, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and Harry Schwarz.

In the 2006 municipal elections, the DA narrowly gained control of its largest city, Cape Town, in a multi-party coalition.

[25][26] Zille said the new DA would be "more reflective of our rich racial, linguistic and cultural heritage,"[27] and emphasized that she wanted it to be a "party for all the people" and not decline into a "shrinking, irrelevant minority.

In her newsletter, she wrote that "winning power in the Western Cape will allow us to show what co-operative governance between local authorities and a province can achieve.

[33] Partially on the basis of this campaign the DA contested the 2014 general election, where it once again grew its support base but failed in its stated goal of winning Gauteng province.

[39][40] In the run-up to the 2024 general election, the DA joined the Multi-Party Charter, an electoral alliance taking advantage of the unpopularity of the ANC.

[46] Former party leader Helen Zille has argued that this stands in direct contrast to the ruling ANC's approach to governance, which she maintains has led to a "closed, crony society for some".

[47] This formed the basis of the philosophy underlying the party's 2009 Election Manifesto,[48] which seeks to build a society by linking outcomes to "opportunity, effort and ability".

The party later released documentation of the unit's poor disciplinary record, and claimed its divisional commander had himself dodged serious criminal charges.

[62] Central to the DA's social development policy, "Breaking the Cycle of Poverty",[63] is a Basic Income Grant, which would provide a monthly transfer of R110 to all adults earning less than R46,000 per year.

The party also supports legislation that would require the legal guardians of children living in poverty to ensure that their child attends 85 per cent of school classes, and undergoes routine health check-ups.

In addition, to aid with youth development skills, the party proposed a R6000 opportunity voucher or twelve month community service programme to all high school matriculants.

The DA's education programme, "Preparing for Success",[64] focuses on providing adequate physical and human resources to underperforming schools.

The DA continues to support the introduction of new performance targets for teachers and schools, and also advocates a per-child wage subsidy, and a national network of community-based early childhood education centres.

Included in these plans is an increase in the number of clinics offering HIV testing and measures to provide all HIV-positive women with Nevirapine.

And the DA believes that the role of the government is to provide every citizen with a minimum basic standard of quality services and resources with which to be able to do so – a framework for choice."

The majority of the interventions suggested by the party are aimed at creating an atmosphere conducive to job creation and greater foreign direct investment.

[69] The DA proposes to incentivise savings by reducing taxes on income earned from fixed deposits that are held for longer than twelve months.

The party states that this would help South Africa to boost its domestic savings rate to enable the country to invest in projects that will provide additional job opportunities.

The party believes that this approach will give a broader group of black South Africans an opportunity to compete and partake in the economy.

This fits into the party's broader vision of growing the economy by cutting red tape and regulations it claims is holding back South Africa's economic growth.

The DA's "Land of Opportunity"[75] programme supports the "willing buyer, willing seller" principle, though it also allows for expropriation for reform purposes in certain limited circumstances.

The DA believe voting rights should be extended to include all South African citizens who are living and working abroad, many of whom intend returning.

South Africa, a member of the BRICS alliance, has remained neutral throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the DA (including DA-controlled legislatures and councils) supports Ukraine and has criticised South Africa's ambiguous position, though the ANC has denied supporting Russia and insists that it is neutral.

Robin Atson, Kamogelo Makola, Chadwin Petersen and Lindokuhle Sixabayi are the Interim DA Youth Federal Deputy Chaipersons in Administration, Recruitment, Training and Development, and Media and Publicity, respectively.

Until 28 April 2021, the Democratic Alliance Women's Network (DAWN) federal leader was Nomafrench Mbombo, who is also the current Western Cape Minister of Health.

Previously the DA Abroad was led by Ludre Stevens between 2009 and 2015 and then by Francine Higham between 2015 and 2019 with Morné Van der Waltsleben as Global Operations Chair from 2013 to 2017.