Helen Zille’s eight-year tenure saw her play an important role in growing the DA’s support base, writes Mayibongwe Maqhina.
Durban - When DA leader Helen Zille announced she would not stand for re-election at the federal congress next month, she surprised many within and outside her party.
This happened as Zille had appeared certain to again clinch the leadership position if the reports that there was no one in the DA with “enough guts” to challenge her, were anything to go by.
She explained at a media briefing on Sunday that her decision was long coming and that it was in the best interests of the party.
“An advantage of my late decision is that the campaign that will determine the DA’s next leader will be short and sharp, given that our elective congress is four weeks away,” Zille said.
“This avoids the potential for a debilitating contest,” she said, in a reference to the timing of her announcement.
While Zille has insisted that she had not been pushed, her decision to call it quits may have more to do with maintaining her legacy than merely protecting the interests of the party.
It is therefore worth examining her eight-year tenure, which saw her play an important role in growing the support base of her party and at the same time becoming a liability to the party in the process.
Under her leadership, the DA retained control of the Western Cape and City of Cape Town. Both were once led by the ANC.
Zille also managed to make the party appeal to the black community and ensured leaders like Patricia de Lille, Mmusi Maimane and Lindiwe Mazibuko took up prominent leadership positions.
The party has substantial presence in black townships and rural areas, where it is now fashionable for blacks to wear the party’s blue colours, to the dislike of some leaders from other parties.
The move has not been without controversy on her part, as she has been a laughing stock for the “monkey” dance and her singing of late musician Brenda Fassie’s Vulindlela song when visiting the townships.
However, the state of affairs she is likely to leave the DA in is a far cry from the era when the party dubiously earned a reputation of being racist and hellbent on protecting the interests of whites at all costs.
The party has grown its electorate vote from 12.3 percent from the time of her predecessor, Tony Leon, who was a leader in 2004, to 22.2% in last year’s general elections under Zille’s leadership.
Although the party fell short of obtaining a 30 percent vote in the May 2014 general elections, it performed spectacularly when it assumed the official opposition status not only in Parliament, but also in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, when it booted out the Congress of the People and IFP respectively from their comfortable positions.
In what can be described as following in the footsteps of Leon, who merged the DP and NNP to form the DA, Zille also successfully merged the Independent Democrats, previously led by Patricia de Lille, with the DA in growing the party’s support base.
It was possibly with this in mind that she told the Sunday media briefing it was essential for an opposition political party to grow in every election.
“While I believe we would have carried on growing beyond our current four-million support base in next year’s 2016 election under my continued leadership, I am convinced our prospects will be even better under a fresh team,” she said at the weekend.
However, she may have thought of leaving the task of attracting further black votes to her successor, considering that her “political flirtation” with Agang leader Mamphele Ramphele proved a disaster.
Their “deadly kiss” has been an embarrassing blot.
Apart from this misstep, the DA under Zille has also been able to champion some of the principles that underpin its liberal values.
Under Zille, the party was successful in having the Constitutional Court overturn the appointment of former justice department head Menzi Simelane as the boss of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
The party won a ruling compelling the NPA to release the spy tapes and records pertaining to the withdrawal of 700 fraud charges that President Jacob Zuma faced. However, it remains to be seen whether the court will have the charges against Zuma reinstated.
Zille has, during her tenure, courted controversy on numerous occasions for the wrong reasons.
She once caused an uproar when she referred to pupils from the Eastern Cape as “education refugees”.
Her statement reawakened perceptions her party was racist and viewed blacks only as voting cattle.
One of the most controversial decisions the DA leadership under Zille took, was to lead a march to hand over a petition to Cosatu over its alleged blocking of the youth wage subsidy in 2012.
The march ended in violence when Cosatu members threw rocks and pieces of cement at the DA supporters as they moved down a street to the labour federation’s offices.
As if this was not enough, the DA under Zille led another march last year to the ANC’s head offices to make a statement on the ruling party’s temporary jobs contained in their manifesto.
The march saw the relationship between Zille and then youth leader, Mbali Ntuli, under severe strain after the latter expressed her concerns about the march to ANC offices.
Zille made headlines last year after reports emerged that she doubted the leadership capacity of Lindiwe Mazibuko and questioned her competence.
Zille was infuriated when Mazibuko first told a weekend newspaper about her decision to study at Harvard University in the US.
This came after a fallout between the pair after the parliamentary caucus had handled legislation on employment equity in November 2013.
At the time it was reported that Zille told a party meeting that she “made” Mazibuko and that she “saved” her several times while she was parliamentary leader.
In 2012, she led some party leaders to Nkandla to inspect the upgrades at the home of President Jacob Zuma.
But, their planned inspection never took place after ANC members blockaded the road leading to the house and threatened to beat the hell out of them.
Zille has not been shy to get involved in conflicts on the social network, Twitter, in a move that did not go down well with some of the party members and the general public.
Her abrasiveness had earlier this year sparked calls that she step down because she was increasingly becoming a liability to the party.
In January, the Mail & Guardian quoted some party leaders who voiced serious concerns over their DA leader and saying it was time she stepped down.
“Most do not want to challenge the leader because they want to keep their jobs, and they know what happened to those who fell out with the leader, like Lindiwe Mazibuko,” the M&G quoted one anonymous leader as saying.
When these reports surfaced, she was defiant, saying she would contest for the third term next month, but three months down the line she sang a different tune.
At Sunday’s press briefing, Zille was adamant she had not been pushed to step down.
“There was not a single individual that pushed me, not one and not one single suggestion. I made that decision,” she said.
Time will tell whether she was pushed or not, or if there was any pressure on her.
Daily News