DURBAN - In the wake of Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s apology yesterday, DA leaders in KwaZulu-Natal have urged the focus to be shifted to saving the country’s economy, creating jobs and ousting the ANC from power in 2019.
Zille’s apology was for comments she made on Twitter in March, endorsing the benefits of colonialism.
Zwakele Mncwango, DA KZN leader, said because Zille had apologised the country should “accept the fact and move on with life, because the DA had a bigger project it was focusing on for the 2019 elections”.
He said they wanted to root out corruption because “it can’t go on like this”.
“We strongly believe as the DA we have a bigger project to save our country,” said Mncwango.
When asked if it had been correct to let Zille stay on as premier of the Western Cape, despite being suspended from all party-related activities, Mncwango said he had been part of the decision taken by the federal executive would not come out with a different view.
“Unfortunately, we allow ourselves as a country to be disrupted by other issues, and I’m not saying this is not important, but right now our country should be looking at what needs to be done to bring back our economy and build confidence to encourage investment in this country,” Mncwango said.
He said some of these issues that were focused on would never help the country to create jobs or attract investment.
“It’s very important that the bigger picture is to save our country from the ANC, because the bigger project is for the opposition party to unite and save this country,” Mncwango added.
John Steenhuisen, DA Chief Whip, said Zille’s apology had been sincere and welcomed, and that DA leader Mmusi Maimane had shown decisive intervention and leadership in the matter.
“I certainly don’t think her career is over, she’s going to continue doing what she does best, which is being premier of the Western Cape and delivering good governance, and that’s what her mandate is and what she’s going to continue to do,” said Steenhuisen.
He said it was not as if Zille, as a former leader of the party, had any ambition to lead the party again and he had no doubt she would see out her term as Western Cape premier.
“I think for the party now it’s to focus on the future, not fighting for the past.
“We’ve got 9.3million of our South African citizens without the dignity of work.
“We’ve got an economy that has negative growth and face more ratings downgrades, and what
we should be doing is working hard to face those issues,” said Steenhuisen.
Debates around colonialism did not belong in the country’s current discourse, Steenhuisen said; it was something that belonged in academia.
“What we should be focusing on like a laser beam is making sure we’re creating jobs so we can get South Africans back to work,” he said.
On whether the party had dealt with the issue in the correct manner, Steenhuisen reiterated that Maimane had shown decisive leadership in handling the matter and the DA leader had a good
project that he was trying to
undertake.
“He has to jump decades in achieving the goal of getting the ANC to under 50% in the 2019 elections and I think he’s shown tremendous leadership and that’s why he felt this sort of decisive intervention was required,” Steenhuisen added.
Another high-ranking DA insider, who did not want to be named, said Zille would not have any influence in the party post-2019 because of the damage her
comments had done to her reputation.
The party insider said Zille’s comments had done irreparable damage to her future prospects.
“It’s good, because she said something that was irrational and insensitive to South Africans and for three months she tried to defend it, not seeing that people were trying to reprimand her, so it’s clear that she’s not in any position to carry on leading if she can’t listen when she’s being told that what she’s said hurt people,” the party insider said.
Protas Madlala, a political analyst, said it was difficult to tell whether this would spell the end for Zille in politics, despite some arguments on why she had taken three months to apologise.
“As time went by she realised how much harm and division this was causing within the party, especially along colour lines, and in her wisdom she decided to
humble herself and apologise for the sake of the unity of the party,” Madlala said.
He said the longer the issue dragged on, the more harm it had caused the party.
Madlala said this was not the end for Zille as she still enjoyed huge support from the white community and DA members.
“It might backfire on Maimane because I think her white supporters would rather side and fight with her than with Maimane,” Madlala said.
This, according to Madlala, was because Maimane was viewed as a powerless leader who was installed to attract black voters to the party.