The DA's leader in KwaZulu-Natal, Zwakele Mncwango, will not stand for re-election when the province chooses new leaders next year.
Mncwango, 41, told the Sunday Times he would take time off to pursue PhD studies after serving two terms as party leader in the province.
Mncwango, first elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2018, is among DA leaders who have recently been embroiled in power battles with their colleagues over the party's political direction, which has been criticised as unattractive to black voters.
Mncwango raised the ire of some in the DA by inviting former party leader Mmusi Maimane to the state of the province address in March.
But he insisted that the recent ructions in the party have nothing to do with his decision to stand down, which he said was motivated by his having achieved his goals in the position and being ready for new challenges.
"The goal for my first term was to establish the DA in rural KwaZulu-Natal," he said.
"We grew in the local government elections, we made inroads, gaining around six [percentage] points in the eThekwini metro since 2011 and more than three points in KwaZulu-Natal as a whole."
The DA grew in KwaZulu-Natal despite challenges that the party faced at national level, where we failed dismally in other provinces.
Support for the DA in KwaZulu-Natal grew from 12.76% in the 2014 general elections to 13.9% in 2019, despite the party's poor showing in the rest of the country last year.
"The DA grew in KwaZulu-Natal despite challenges that the party faced at national level, where we failed dismally in other provinces," Mncwango said.
"We grew numbers in parliament and the provincial legislature.
"Now I believe that as a leader you must set goals, achieve them and move on to something else."
He said his tenure had not always been plain sailing because he had to work with people he often disagreed with.
"My motto is simple: don't allow differences to dictate how you run a political organisation. It is the responsibility of the leader to bring together everyone, even those who have campaigned against me.
"But there were people in the organisation who had permanent anger, who never accepted me," he said.
He praised the DA provincial chair, Haniff Hoosen, as a trusted ally.
"As the person who managed resources, Haniff had a lot of power, there were people who were influencing him to make sure that I did not succeed, but he never sabotaged me. He could have, but he worked with me. I respect him because others were trying to pull me down."
Mncwango said his political adversaries painted him as a Zulu nationalist who was not fit to lead a liberal party.
"After I was elected internally there were people who were saying, how can KwaZulu-Natal elect a person who wears animal skins?" he said, referring to the Zulu tradition of wearing the skins of leopards and other animals.
"There was an attempt to paint me as primitive, that I was not the ideal leader even after I was democratically elected.
"Some people think being a liberal has a certain colour and other people can't be; that being liberal means you can't be conscious of who you are. I rejected that," Mncwango said.
His successor would need to be a strong leader, he said.
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