South Africa

Politics, South Africa

Zille readies for battle as DA suspends her ahead of disciplinary hearing

Zille readies for battle as DA suspends her ahead of disciplinary hearing

It’s official. Helen Zille on Wednesday evening was suspended from all DA party activities, although she remains in her post as Western Cape premier. The decision comes after days of controversy following DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s announcement on Saturday that Zille was suspended over her colonialism tweets, subsequently corrected by the party to have meant she has been given three days’ notice to give reasons why she should not be suspended. By MARIANNE MERTEN.

The official announcement after a meeting of the DA federal executive said Western Cape premier Helen Zille was suspended with immediate effect from all party activities – the federal executive, the federal council and its Western Cape counterpart and even addressing a DA branch general meeting. This decision, backed by legal opinion, came just more than a day before the disciplinary charges for the tweets on the positive legacies of colonialism starts on Friday.

DA Federal Executive Chairperson James Selfe, in a statement, said the decision to suspend Zille from party activities was taken by “an overwhelming majority” in the federal executive, which met on Wednesday morning.

“The federal executive agreed that Ms Zille’s social media commentary and public utterances in connection with colonialism breaks down public trust, stunts South Africa’s reconciliation imperative, and undermines our political project,” Selfe said.

“There is no question that Ms Zille’s original tweets and subsequent justifications have damaged our standing in the public mind. We live in a fragile democracy which means our public representatives must, at all times, be sensitive to the legitimate anger that people still feel about our past and its legacy.”

That damage has reared its head in Parliament, where ANC MPs have boosted their digs at the DA from jibes that it represented white elite interests to also include that they are harking back to the days of colonialism.

Away from the public eye, the steps against Zille – it was announced in April she would face a disciplinary hearing – have unsettled the DA. Zille is widely, and freely, credited with having been instrumental in boosting the DA’s profile and growth in electoral support from what once was the 1.7% Democratic Party in the late Nineties to the DA’s 22.23% polling in the 2014 elections.

The decision to charge her has sparked tensions within the DA, largely in relation to the future direction of the party. The basic bottom line is that despite growing voters’ support, the largest opposition party must increase its support among black voters in 2019. In the 2016 local government elections under Maimane’s leadership the DA clinched several additional councils and, in co-operation with other political parties, governs in South Africa’s economic powerhouse of Johannesburg, the administrative capital Pretoria and in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in the heart of the Eastern Cape’s economy.

It is perhaps fitting that given the controversy is around tweets, that Zille on Wednesday evening posted her 16-page submissions to the federal executive on Twitter. In the document she described the process towards suspension as “a sham”.

Any ongoing damage to the DA was “of its own doing”, Zille said in the submission. “My original tweets, in a conversation about lessons from Singapore, were not in any way intended to harm the party, nor in any objective reading of them, could they be interpreted as doing so. It was the subsequent misinterpretation of my tweets as “defending”, “glorifying” or “justifying” colonialism that caused the damage. All I have done is try to correct these mis-statements and distortions. I am not the one who has held press conferences and made speeches, or statements, or continuously leaked misinformation to the media.”

Zille blows the lid on “several attempts over the last few weeks to force me to resign immediately, before a hearing takes place”.  Because she said she would not, the federal executive has decided to suspend her. She also dismisses as not in good faith what the DA had styled as efforts to resolve the matter.

“… all involved the condition that I resign as Premier, or plead guilty to an offence through apologising for offences I did not commit, which would open the way for my expulsion from the party,” Zille said, adding later: “I have done nothing to breach my oath of office as Premier that warrants my resignation or removal from this office”.

Clearly, it’s fight back mode.

The ANC leader in the Western Cape legislature Khaya Magaxa on Wednesday evening called on Zille to immediately resign. “She lost the confidence of the DA and the people of the province. The Western Cape cannot afford two centres of power in the deeply divided DA,” he said in a statement.

The EFF rejected the suspension from party activities, while staying on as premier, as “playful”. EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said the logic of South Africa’s electoral system meant the electorate voted for the DA, not Zille personally. “This decision means the DA cares more about itself than it does about the people of South Africa because Helen Zille will continue to be a premier of the Western Cape,” said Ndlozi. “Any suspension that does not have an implication on her position as premier is futile and irrelevant to the rest of the people.” 

Zille has a solid backing in certain circles of the DA, particularly in the Western Cape and Cape Town, but also nationally and has remained influential even after announcing just before the 2015 DA congress she was not up for re-election.

Once she was elected to succeed former party leader Tony Leon in 2007, Zille moved to implement her vision of political realignment. At the time she was mayor of Cape Town, holding together a coalition of seven parties in the wake of the 2006 municipal election. With her move to the premier’s post, the DA could claim a governance track-record and re-envision itself as a party of government, not just opposition.

However, Zille’s Twitter and social media habits have long caused disquiet in some circles of the party. Her 2012 comments about the education “refugees” from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape is still cited against the party. Her colonialism tweets raised heckles to the extent the DA decided to act against her.

Zille’s suspension follows Maimane’s announcement in April that there had been a near unanimous decision to charge Zille with, including, bringing the DA into disrepute, deliberately acting in a way that negatively impacts the party and publicly opposing the party’s principles and published policies.

The disciplinary process has dragged on since; at least one factor has been co-ordinating lawyers’ diaries, but Zille’s submission also makes it clear there were delays in getting further particulars on the disciplinary charges as well as other efforts, as she outlined, to resolve the matter unfolded.

“Mr Maimane has asked Ms Zille to issue a full apology for her actions and has sought to find a solution to this matter. In every effort he has made, Ms Zille has refused to take the appropriate action necessary to resolve this unfortunate and damaging matter. Her ongoing communication on this issue has continued to cause damage to the party,” said Selfe.

“As a former leader and as a member of the federal executive, Ms Zille has a special duty of care to protect the party’s interests and promote the party’s mission, which is to build a non-racial, inclusive democracy. Ms Zille’s statements are at variance with this.”

The DA said it could not remove Zille as Western Cape premier because voters have elected her into that position. “There is a separation between party and state, and this suspension does not affect her government role,” said the statement by Selfe. DM

Photo: Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, accompanied by the party’s parliamentary leader  Mmusi Maimane (L) and DA MPs stage a protest in front of Parliament in Cape Town on Thursday, 20 November 2014. Picture: Nardus Engelbrecht/SAPA

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