Johannesburg - Joburg Mayor Herman Mashaba has defended his controversial tweet that labelled President Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency’s a “failure” in comparison to US President Donald Trump’s “successful” administration.
Mashaba tweeted a picture on Monday morning which listed Ramaphosa’s “failures” compared to Trump’s “successes”.
The tweet caused an uproar on Twitter with some users labelling the mayor’s comments as “irresponsible”.
Mashaba has since deleted the tweet.
It seems @HermanMashaba deleted his Trump tweet.
But because accountability is a real thing in this world (even though it's a myth in @Our_DA[not ours; never ours]), here it is again. pic.twitter.com/y1yR595JWJ
— To Infinity and Beyoncé* 🐼 (@PearlPillay) August 13, 2018
He said the point of the tweet was to explain that despite Trump’s reputation he had managed to achieve a lot of his promises. The mayor said he likes Ramaphosa, but the truth was that he presides over a government with a lot of issues.
“The post in question was not one endorsing the President of the United States, Donald Trump. In fact, I hold no great affinity for President Trump. Personally, I like President Ramaphosa. However, this is not about personalities.
"The point of the tweet was to illustrate the fact that, despite our misgivings of President Trump, his government has been engaged in action which is allegedly returning some benefits. The same cannot be said for President Ramaphosa, no matter how much one may like him. Since the beginning of his tenure, President Ramaphosa has overseen a declining economy which has left South Africans not only increasingly jobless but also fighting increasingly rising costs of living,” said Mashaba in a statement.
Picture: Lou-Anne Daniels/IOL
The mayor said Ramaphosa was not beyond reproach and that he should be judged in accordance to having being in power since 2014 and watched as government entities were being corrupted.
“However, the President’s record in government stretches beyond just his time in his current office. As the leader of Government Business, in his previous role as deputy president, Ramaphosa failed to take any action which improved the economy or tangibly better the lives of South Africans,” he said.
Mashaba was not the only DA member to stir up controversy on Twitter on Monday morning, as Western Cape Premier Helen Zille used the platform to yet again defend her arguments on colonialism.
Picture: Lou-Anne Daniels/IOL
She said; “Do you only believe the legacy of colonialism was only negative? Then let’s scrap the constitution including concepts such as the separation of powers. Let’s scrap formal education institutions, the language etc...”.
Last year, Zille faced a disciplinary inquiry by the DA after she made similar defences. She was suspended for participating in party activities and she had to publicly apologise for her tweets.