Tony Leon
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Anthony James Leon (born 15 December 1956) is a South African politician and the leader of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa's main opposition party and current leader of the opposition.
Leon grew up in South Africa in a Jewish family during the apartheid era, when the African National Congress and other organisations representing the black majority were illegal. In 1974 he became an organiser for the Progressive Party, the more liberal of South Africa's only two legal opposition parties of the time. After qualifying as an attorney at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was President of the Law Students' Council and Vice-President of the Students' Representative Council, he became a lecturer in the Law Department in 1986. In the same year he was elected to the Johannesburg City Council, where he became leader of the opposition.
He was educated at Kearsney College near Durban before he studied law at the University of Witwatersrand, where he was President of the Law Students' Council and Vice-President of the Students' Representative Council. He became an attorney, and in 1986 a lecturer in the law department at the same university.
In 1989 he was elected to Parliament for the Houghton constituency, representing the Progressive Party's successor, the Democratic Party.
From 1990 to 1994 he chaired the DP's Bill of Rights Commission, and as such was an advisor to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) and a delegate to the multi-party negotiations that led to the end of apartheid and the establishment of a multi-party democracy in 1994.
At the 1994 general elections, Leon was again elected to Parliament in the first democratic National Assembly, as well as leader of the Democratic Party. At the time, the Democratic Party was perceived as merely a minor party of white liberals, an oddity in the first multiracial government of South Africa.
With the second democratic elections in 1999 and the New National Party only retaining 28 seats (down from 82 in 1994), he became Leader of the Opposition as the DP took 38 seats.
After the 2004 general elections, the Democratic Alliance under Leon had a vote increased by 2.8%, as did the ANC with an increase of 3.3%. These gains came at a cost to three of the five minor opposition parties, with only the Independent Democrats — a newcomer in the elections — also attracting support.
Leon has built a high media profile as opposition leader, effectively criticising the ANC government under Nelson Mandela but more so under his successor, President Thabo Mbeki, for failing to deal with South Africa's huge problems of poverty, unemployment and the AIDS epidemic. He has, however, alienated some of his party's liberal supporters by supporting the death penalty, genetically modified food and Eskom's pebble-bed reactor. Leon has also been criticized by some for "representing the interests of a minority of South Africa's population" and "making problems seem bigger than they actually are".
Leon was voted 16th in the Top 100 Great South Africans.
