DA yet to decide on Zille over ‘colonialism’
THE POLITICAL future of Premier Helen Zille remains unclear with the DA refusing to say whether she will face disciplinary action over her comments on colonialism.
The head of the DA’s Federal Legal Commission, Glynnis Breytenbach, said it was not her call whether Zille would face disciplinary action.
That decision lay with the federal executive committee.
However, she refused to say whether or not she had recommended action against Zille.
Breytenbach and Zille met in Cape Town late last week to investigate the comments she made on social media two weeks ago.
Breytenbach’s investigation took place after DA leader Mmusi Maimane lodged a complaint with the federal legal commission on the comments made by his predecessor.
The head of the federal legal commission said she would not decide whether there should be disciplinary action against Zille.
“It is not my decision and it is not the decision of the federal legal commission. I will submit my report to the federal executive committee and they will make a decision,” said Breytenbach.
Chairman of the federal executive committee, James Selfe, said he would wait for the report to be submitted before a decision is taken.
“I have to wait for the report, and I have to consider the report. Until that happens I won’t know what will happen. It will depend when I receive the report and what I decide to do with it,” he said.
Zille created a storm in the country with her comments three weeks ago that some aspects of colonialism were positive.
The ANC called for the DA to act against Zille. And the EFF strongly criticised the comments by the former DA leader.
Zille is not the first DA leader to fall foul of the party’s social media policy. DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard was also slapped with a sanction after she re-tweeted a comment from a journalist in KwaZulu-Natal praising apartheid.
Kohler Barnard has since been moved from her post as the party’s police spokesperson and is now the deputy spokesperson on public works.
The ANC in Parliament also came out strongly against the Zille comments on colonialism. During the question-and-answer session with President Jacob Zuma in the National Assembly a few weeks ago ANC MPs called for action against Zille, saying she was reversing the gains made by the country in the past two decades.