PRETORIA, Tuesday 25 August 2026 — Former Freedom Front Plus Tshwane caucus leader Grandi Theunissen has resigned from the party and joined the Democratic Alliance, giving the DA an experienced local-government figure in the capital less than three months before South Africa’s municipal elections.
Theunissen announced his resignation from the FF Plus on Tuesday morning before appearing alongside DA Tshwane mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink at a media briefing in Pretoria.
He had been a member of the FF Plus since 1994 and previously served as the party’s Tshwane regional chairperson and caucus leader in the metropolitan council.
Theunissen was also a proportional-representation councillor in Tshwane and previously served on the mayoral committee responsible for community safety during a DA-led coalition government.
His departure follows an internal dispute within the FF Plus’s Tshwane structures and his removal as caucus leader earlier this month.
That disciplinary action followed controversy over a Tshwane council vote concerning a proposed property development in Groenkloof. The FF Plus had publicly opposed the development, but its council caucus under Theunissen later voted in favour of it alongside the ANC, EFF and ActionSA.
The proposed development involves municipal land currently used as a bowling green and includes plans for commercial, office and residential development.
The FF Plus subsequently investigated the conduct of its Tshwane caucus and removed Theunissen from the leadership position.
Theunissen has criticised the way the party’s national leadership handled the matter.
He said he was given limited time to respond to allegations against him and described the intervention in the Tshwane caucus as undemocratic. He also said dissatisfaction with developments inside the party had been growing over several years.
The FF Plus had previously positioned Theunissen as a significant part of its 2026 Tshwane campaign.
When the party announced attorney Willie Spies as its mayoral candidate in February, it said Theunissen would lead the election campaign alongside him, describing the two as an experienced local-government team.
Theunissen said on Tuesday that he had also held what he regarded as a highly electable position on the FF Plus candidate list before deciding to leave.
He said his working relationship with Brink during the previous DA-led coalition in Tshwane had influenced his decision to join the DA.
Theunissen referred particularly to the period in which the two parties worked together in municipal government and said he and Brink had developed common positions on governance and the stability of the coalition.
Brink said the DA regarded Theunissen’s move as significant because of his municipal experience and previous work in Tshwane.
The DA said it expected him to contribute to its campaign to return to government in the metro after the 4 November election. Those assessments are the DA’s own characterisation of the defection and its electoral significance.
The move is particularly notable because the FF Plus has developed one of its strongest municipal organisations in Tshwane.
Before Theunissen’s resignation, the party had 17 councillors in the metropolitan council, its largest municipal caucus nationally, according to reporting on the internal leadership dispute.
Theunissen’s change of party does not, however, automatically transfer an existing Tshwane council seat from the FF Plus to the DA.
The City of Tshwane listed Theunissen as an FF Plus proportional-representation councillor. Under the Municipal Structures Act, when a councillor elected from a party list leaves office, the vacancy is filled from the applicable party list rather than following the departing councillor to another party.
The political effect is therefore more relevant to the coming election campaign and the parties’ support bases than to the current balance of seats in the council.
The FF Plus and DA have previously competed directly for support in several Tshwane communities despite also having governed together in coalitions.
Earlier this year, Theunissen himself lodged an electoral complaint against the DA during the Ward 57 by-election in Centurion, accusing it of misleading voters by suggesting that support for the FF Plus would benefit the ANC.
His move to the DA seven months later illustrates the changing relationship between the two parties as they prepare to contest the same electorate in the November municipal vote.
The defection also creates an immediate organisational challenge for the FF Plus, which must continue its Tshwane campaign under Spies without the regional and caucus figure it had earlier intended to place alongside him.
For the DA, the move gives Brink a former coalition colleague with experience inside the FF Plus’s Tshwane organisation as the party campaigns to regain control of the capital.
The longer-term significance will depend on whether Theunissen’s move remains an individual defection or is followed by further changes among FF Plus members, candidates or voters ahead of the 4 November election.
