Zille's return to DA selection panel ruffles feathers

Share this article: Share Tweet Share Share Share Email Share

Cape Town - The DA has remained adamant that Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s spot on its selection panel to choose party representatives in Parliament is not in contravention of her suspension agreement. Zille was suspended from all party activities last year following a series of tweets in which she defended aspects of colonialism. The City Press yesterday quoted DA spokesperson Solly Malatsi saying they would not have signed off on it if it contravened the agreement. DA Federal Executive chairperson James Selfe yesterday told the Cape Times to refer to Malatsi’s response. When pressed, Selfe said: “We are making use of her experience.”

This, however, was in stark contrast to DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s statement when announcing the sanctions imposed on Zille following her tweets.

Maimane had said it was clear Zille did not share the same attitude about the DA’s mission for 2019, adding: “Zille’s social media commentary and public utterances in connection with colonialism undermine our reconciliation project.

“There is no question that Zille’a original tweets and subsequent justification have damaged our standing in public.”

Approached for comment yesterday, Zille said: “Membership of the selection panel is bound by clear criteria and key indicators in ranking candidates in the ‘pool’ elected by the electoral college.

‘‘Everyone knows that I do not allow any other issues to get in the way of proper processes.

“I have prevented people trying to hijack selection panels for their own agendas in the past.”

Maimane’s spokesperson, Portia Adams, referred questions relating to the selection panel to Selfe.

“The leader of the DA is here to build a strong, diverse leadership, not argue about the past,” Adams said.

ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs said Zille was brought in through the back door.

Her being allowed on the panel was a show of the DA’s default setting, “that black people are good enough to vote, but not to lead”.

He said Zille was “ruling from the grave”. “They are all scared of her, and the white ‘baasskap’ mentality still exists within the DA,” Jacobs said.

Black people must stop being fooled; they don’t care about the people on the Cape Flats,” Jacobs said.

The latest controversy follows statements by former DA MP Lindiwe Mazibuko who reportedly told a gathering last week Zille had often failed at nurturing new leadership, that Zille had undermined her and was doing the same thing to Maimane.

Adams did not respond to a request for comment on Mazibuko’s remarks yesterday.

Following Mazibuko’s statements, Zille said in a radio interview she had told Mazibuko she wasn’t ready to lead the party.

Zille went on to say she herself should not be on the party’s federal executive.

“I said to them, ‘peak late’, and when Lindiwe wanted to stand as the leader of the caucus after only two years on the caucus, I said I think it’s a bit early. I think it’s wrong that I should be sitting, for example, on a federal executive

““It is a bit difficult when you’re trying shape your own vision and your own direction and give your own leadership, to have the former leader sitting there. I completely understand that, and that’s one of the reason why I stepped back.”

[email protected]

Cape Times