We welcome the suspension of Helen Zille by the DA, but say it is long overdue in that deeply divided party. The DA remains the vehicle chosen by those who want to maintain privilege of the wealthy and elite in our country.
Zille has so far been handled with kid gloves. Her comments about professional blacks, refugees and unwillingness to acknowledge racism in SA have previously gone unchallenged by the DA.
She served a purpose by mobilizing minority communities against the ANC using swart gevaar tactics. She has reached her ceiling.
Now some in the same group who control the DA and see it as a vehicle to preserve racial and economic privilege are beginning to see Zille as a liability. The minority party of the DA is desperate for the votes of black South Africans. They want to use black voters to in essence block the socio economic transformation South Africa needs.
Yet other funders of the DA fear taking action against Zille will alienate conservative DA voters. The confused DA is in a catch 22 situation with no way out. Whatever the DA decides, the ANC calls on South Africans to reject this DA which harbours racists and colonialists.
A leopard cannot change its spots. The DA is beyond repair. Zille is not good enough now to participate in DA party activities, but good enough to be premier - where the power lies. This shows the DA is not serious at all.. Instead it keeps insulting the majority of Western Cape citizens.
Statement issued by ANC Western Cape secretary Faiez Jacobs, 3 June 2017
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Disgraced DA premier Zille must resign now
The ANC repeats its call on the DA’s disgraced past leader Helen Zille to immediately resign as Western Cape premier. She has also humiliated the province and its people with her continuous Twitter attack on people of colour.
Zille’s earlier Twitter rants on the virtues of certain apartheid and racial colonialism was the last straw. It did not only bring disrepute to her party, but also embarrassed her high office as first citizen of the province and the Western Cape legislature.
It is also abundantly clear that the power-crazy Zille is determined to fight for her political life and to hang onto the comforts of the official home, millions of Rand brought by her pay with pension or personnel serving her every wish and the glamour of her ceremonial parties or socialite lifestyle. She refuses to see the signs that she has fallen to become expendable and a serious liability.
ANC Western Cape leader of the opposition in the legislature (shadow premier) Khaya Magaxa says: “The DA is quick to tell other parties what to do and suspend all and sundry, but is clearly a lame duck that just does not have the political will to deal with its own errant members and especially stubborn Zille properly to recall her from her government position. Her party now reduced her to a lame duck premier that may soon not even attend a DA caucus in the legislature!
“Her public fightback, playing the race card and even tainting her party as anti-white has dragged her, her party and the Western Cape to a shameful low point. She deeply divides not just her party, but people of our country. In fact, it is now evident that Zille has stooped to turn her bunfight into a personal and desperate attempt to cling on to power by destruction. She is a bulldozer in a fine china shop. That is why the majority in her party show her the door.
“Zille’s grabbing onto her position very much resembles the desperation of the erstwhile apartheid president of the old South Africa PW Botha who also fought off the inevitable. In the besieged Zille’s case she suffers a self-induced breach of public trust, diminished following and fallout with her party that now demands that she falls into her own sword and resign soonest. She is not good enough for the DA and most certainly not good enough for the Western Cape. She is past her sell by date. It is time to pack and call it a day, Zille!”
Statement issued by ANC Western Cape acting chairperson, Khaya Magaxa, 4 June 2017
