By Carien Du Plessis
Accusations of spying and computer hacking are rife within the parliamentary ranks of COPE as details of personal emails bad-mouthing the leadership of party president Mosiuoa Lekota surfaced this week.
This comes as Lekota is gearing up for a battle with his deputy, Mbhazima Shilowa, for the leadership of the party, which is to be decided at an elective conference at the end of the month.
On Wednesday COPE's whip for administration in Parliament, Lolo Mashiane, refused to comment about how a personal email in which she insulted Lekota came to be made public.
She was forced to apologise to COPE's parliamentary leader, Mvume Dandala, after copies of this email were leaked to newspapers.
The email was sent to a friend in the Justice Department by Mashiane, who vented her frustration and anger with Lekota.
It is understood that Shilowa supporters were accusing Lekota's people on Wednesday of hacking into people's personal email accounts and intercepting private communications.
The email, of which Independent Newspapers has a copy, was sent from Mashiane's personal Yahoo address.
"We do not know how people got hold of this e-mail but we are investigating," said a COPE MP, who did not want to be named.
Shilowa, who is also the party's Chief Whip in Parliament, said the allegation was up to the party to investigate, but if someone within the caucus had done the hacking or inappropriately gained access to others' emails, then he would ask for an investigation.
He said he was not "paranoid" about the possibility that rivals might be employing dirty tactics in the run-up to the party's elective conference at the end of the month.
"I am less worried. I am leading a healthy life," he said.
Cope secretary-general Charlotte Lobe could not be reached for comment this morning.
In her email, Mashiane accused Lekota of messing up the party and she attacked whites in the party who sided with him.
"Some people who are still in the ANC voted for us in the national list and voted ANC in the provincial list because they didn't see themselves supporting Zuma for President and then he goes and messes/f**** it up thinking that he is Cope.
"It can't be I tell u we will fight him to the bitter end," Mashiane wrote.
She also refers to a "white woman" in the party "pushing" Lekota to make "all these silly mistakes".
She is believed to be referring to COPE MP and whip Juli Killian.
Killian did not want to comment.
Mashiane said it was absurd that newspapers had reported that whites were preparing for "mass evacuation on the day (Nelson) Mandela dies".
She also later implied that white people had only made up a minority of the more than million Cope voters last year.
She did not refer to these comments in her apology.
Mashiane's email followed a public attack by Lekota on Shilowa, in which Lekota accused his deputy of mismanaging R20-million of party funds.
At the weekend Lekota apologised for this to Cope's congress national committee, but Mashiane, who serves on this committee, questioned whether this did happen.
Cope's auditor, Anton Louw, resigned earlier this week, putting the party at risk of not receiving its administrative and constituency allowances at the end of this month.
In his letter of resignation, of which Independent Newspapers has a copy, Louw complained of a lack of financial systems, unco-operative party officials and the looming deadline, which prevented him preparing "a proper audit for external auditing".
Shilowa said he had approached "one of the big five" auditing firms to take over.