Durban - Mmusi Maimane has been accused of camouflaging racism in the DA party in order to woo black people to vote for the party.
His critics say Maimane seeks to restore the “old order”.
The main opposition party leader came under attack at the ANC provincial office in Durban on Tuesday when the ANC Youth League was accepting a group of EFF “founding members” and one member of the DA who had defected to the ANC.
Read: ANCYL claims it is collapsing EFF
Youth league provincial chairman Thamsanqa Ngubane said Maimane was “just a flower boy” used by the DA’s “white supremacy” to entice black people to vote for it.
He said while many white “racists” emigrated to Australia after the birth of democracy, others were left behind to fight for the status quo.
“If you remember there was a stage of human development called slavery where people were being sold like property. Most of the people who were slaves were blacks, Africans. The people who were grabbing people from the communities were not the white people, they were Africans, grabbing other Africans to sell them to the whites as slaves.
“You still have such elements today. Mmusi Maimane is playing that role of grabbing Africans to sell them to the white agents.”
He said the DA was hypocritical, driving a “#Zumamustfall” campaign while being quiet about its former member Penny Sparrow, who was expelled from the party after calling black people monkeys.
“The DA doesn’t want change in this country, they want to preserve the status quo,” he said.
ANC Youth League provincial secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo said he had heard that Sparrow had moved from Scottburgh to Cape Town. He said he had asked Western Cape youth league chairman Muhammad Khalid Sayed to organise a protest march against her arrival.
DA spokeswoman Phumzile van Damme said the party was focusing on building a different South Africa, and was against racism.
“The ANC is dividing people along racial lines while we are focusing on building a different South Africa,” she said.
Speaking at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Maimane called on party members not to turn a blind eye to racism.
Read: Maimane to start dialogue on race in SA
He said he aimed to introduce an anti-racism pledge for the party.
Political analyst Imraan Buccus said the DA faced a great challenge in shedding its historical racist baggage to perform well in the local government elections.
“The DA critically needs to address and reconcile its racist baggage.
“One can understand Maimane’s attempt to forcefully push a progressive agenda within the DA because he is realising that the future of the DA lies particularly with the black vote,” he said.
The Mercury