Zille draws fire from ANC and its allies

May 12 2009 at 06:39PM

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille drew fire from the African National Congress and its allies on Tuesday after criticising President Jacob Zuma's sexual conduct in a letter defending her all-male team of MECs in the Western Cape.

The ANC Youth League launched its most personal attack yet on Zille, saying "Zille has appointed an all male cabinet of useless people, majority of whom are her boyfriends and concubines so that she can continue to sleep around with them (sic), yet she claims to have the moral authority to question our President".

It threatened "militant action" against the new Western Cape premier.

Zille refused to comment, leaving her spokesman Fritz de Klerk to say: "We will not dignify that with a response."
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The furore broke after she was quoted in The Sowetan as saying: "Zuma is a self-confessed womaniser with deeply sexist views, who put all his wives at risk by having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman."

The African National Congress called the remark "offensive", the Congress of South African Trade Unions, "disgraceful".

Young Communists League weighed in with: "Ms Helen Zille is a sick woman who needs help."

Zille's office said the quote was taken from a letter to The Argus in which she responded to criticism from Zuma's new Minister of Women, Youth, Children and Disabled People - Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya - on the composition of her provincial executive.

A copy was also given to The Sowetan.

Zille is the only woman on the executive and has been widely criticised for surrounding herself with all-male, mostly white, MECs. The minister described the dearth of women on the team as "a serious concern for all of us" and "not a pretty picture".

Cosatu's Western Cape Secretary Tony Ehrenreich has also accused Zille of appointing "severely challenged MECs, who are not the sharpest knives in the drawer".

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