The DA must recall Helen Zille before she does irreparable damage to the Province

Helen Zille's Tweet, in response to the Bungalow Restaurant racist experience of 2 black South Africans, emphasizes this point that under her leadership, The DA has been unashamedly the biggest aiders of racism in the Western Cape (see here). The DA, under her leadership, has failed to treat racism as something much deeper and more powerful, more threatening and more persistent, which requires greater vigor and determination. Her leadership has inevitably resulted in certain parts of Western Cape feeling like a certain version of Orania, for white exclusivity over and against interests of a unified South Africa.

Her response has been two fold. First she has always tried to deny that black people experience racism in the Western Cape and when that seems too desperate, she has then tried to explain that a particular incident is in fact not racist.

Racism under Helen Zille has been much deeper. It has been responsible for who is actually getting opportunities. Who is getting contracts, who is getting sub-contracts, who is getting employed. Racism in the Western Cape has been responsible for who gets hired, who gets fired, who rises, who falls, and such attitudes have livelihoods consequences.

In this instance we must go further however and Isolate Helen Zille. Over the last few years, she has proven to be a washed out leader, long passed her sell by date. Without any political responsibilities, Zille has inserted herself into the world of Tweeter, daily being politically incorrect (Its the only way she has tried to interrupt this huge world, by being silly), daily dumbing herself down with cringe moments that frustrates even her party.

Helen Zille is a chief racist who does not value what this country is about. All fair minded South Africans, who know the pain of deamining experiences of others, and the inability to count on those who are in power to understand must reject Helen Zille.

With a string of grave misjudgements, from the Sinovuyo Mafevuka - Franziska Blöchliger saga, to calling for funding to be stopped for black children who were protesting, It would serve the DA well to recall her before she does irreparable damage to an already racialised party.

Statement issued by Yonela Diko, ANC Western Cape, 21 December 2016