Tony Leon leaves an
intact DA
When Tony Leon, leader of DA, retired from politics after
2009’s elections, the DA was a small but effective and functioning opposition
party that had modestly grown in the decade after 1994.
The DA had maintained its liberal democratic values despite
the left’s criticism its “fight back” election campaign was racist and
anti-black. They conveniently overlooked
the fact it was a push against the corrupt ANC and of Jacob Zuma’s and his
thieving cabal’s ascendancy.
The problem was Leon and DA had not properly explained the
message beforehand and had to control the fallout which the ANC initiated and
used to portray the DA as racist. It was
a marketing blunder and not racism.
Reasonable people knew this, though.
Now with state capture having gutted state and society, the
DA’s campaign was appropriate for the time and prophetic. As evidence of Zuma’s et al thieving
gradually became public, the ANC’s erstwhile supporters, including their media
sycophants, ate crow.
South Africa was and is effectively a single party state –
ANC – but DA punched above its weight.
It had a moral authority and intellectual rigour and its political
philosophy was true to the liberal democratic tradition.
The DA was not perfect, though. It was dominated by whites in leadership and
parliamentary representation despite saying more than any other party it was
representative of all South Africa’s races.
There were non-whites in national and provincial legislatures, but they were
a minority. Its critics used that to
undermine DA’s liberal message, saying they represented white interests.
Generally, DA’s members had a good reputation and were very
capable. Leon, Douglas Gibson, Wilmot
James and others were respected by ANC and other parties. After Leon and Gibson
(he became a die cast DA apologist) retired, they were appointed ambassadors to
Argentina and Thailand respectively which showed the regard the ANC had for
them.
Zille’s rise to power
and megalomania
Helen Zille was the DA’s leader in the Western Cape and
education spokeswoman. She was considered
formidable, intellectually and as a politician.
An aside, in the late 90s I wrote to Leon asking about the DA’s economic
policies. Even then they said they had
policies as a government-in-waiting and I asked to see them.
He replied personally, at least his signature was on the
letter, with a copy of the policies. He also
said he’d instructed Zille to phone me which she did soon after. We had a brief conversation during which there
was a misunderstanding about her thinking I had enquired about joining the DA
(I had been approached by a party worker about getting involved with
them). She sent me a membership form but
I was not interested then or ever joining any party.
I was a DA voter because I believed in them. But as it turned out, 2009 was the last time
I voted for them. And the reason is
Zille.
Zille was elected DA leader after Leon’s retirement. She was the natural choice.
Party leaders take their seat in the National Assembly and
become leader of the opposition. But
after the DA’s victory in the Western Cape over the ANC which followed taking
Cape Town in 2006 in an initially fragile coalition with Patricia de Lille’s
ID, Zille chose premiership over DA leader of the opposition. This says a lot about her and presaged
everything that followed: the DA’s ethical and political confusion and
dissolution into incompetence and corruption.
In South Africa, provinces have limited power and are mere
funding and administrative channels for national government. It cannot levy taxes and has no own revenue
of its own. Even local government has
more effective power.
But that is what Zille wanted: Western Cape. She had her own government and cabinet that she
could rule over, so the premiership was a plum, prestigious and visible post. It paid more than a member of parliament and
she was mistress of the historical official residence of Leeuwenhof in the
Gardens.
The pomp and circumstance of premiership suited her
personality perfectly even if it created problems for the DA – two centres of
power, her as political leader of the DA and a separate leader in the National
Assembly, which in the country’s political system is key and more important.
She wanted power and influence for herself more than to be a
key player in the country’s political future and wellbeing, a big fish in the
small Western Cape pond with its five million people out of South Africa’s then
57 million.
Among opinion makers – media and analysts – there were only muted
questions about Zille’s decision to choose province over country. But by and large it was not an issue for them
or DA’s mainly white voters who adored her.
She could do no wrong.
It was during this time that her manufactured reputation,
albeit confined to media and her party, as a guru on politics and governance
developed. I don’t know if she and her
marketing team created it – probably partly – but the media encouraged and
facilitated it.
She gave audiences to journalists from her lavish Wale
Street office. She was more approachable
and less staid and dour than ANC office bearers, but clearly loved the
attention and giving sage counsel on governance and everything else. During this time she started her From the
Inside column on Daily Maverick,
which then was still a worthwhile read.
Before the Cape Argus
moved sharply left and pro-ANC with Iqbal Survé’s ownership, in October 2016 political
columnist Gasant Abarder conducted an interview. Dominating the almost full-page feature, the
first thing that caught one’s eye was Leon Lestrade’s photo of her reclining on
a couch, fingers of one hand pointing in instruction, the soles of her
orthopaedic-type shoes in the forefront facing the viewer, dominating the shot. Abarder was on the edge of the frame, leaning
forward on the edge of his chair.
Etiquette is when meeting strangers whether at home or
office, and especially during a business meeting, both parties comport
themselves appropriately. Slouching or
slumping, feet up worse, communicates disrespect, laziness and disinterest. In short, very bad manners.
Abarder had to lean forward.
He was ill at ease, which he had admitted he was before the meeting, and
reinforced the impression he was a supplicant.
Zille’s body language was casual and dismissive, an arrogant attitude of
“I’m in charge and what I have to say is vitally important so you better catch
every word”.
In Roman times the patrician and equestrian ruling classes
reclined on couches and dined and even conducted business that way. I’ve never heard of formal meetings still done
like this, even among acquaintances, so there was something studied and posed
about Zille’s casualness.
In Arab cultures it’s an insult to show the soles of one’s
feet to another person – the shoe is considered dirty and it’s a sign of
disrespect. Whether by intent or
accident, Zille disrespected thousands of the Argus’ multi-cultural readers.
She was letting us know she was empress of all she surveyed, etiquette
be damned.
I don’t recall exactly what she said but it was more of her self-serving
oracle-type pronouncements the media lapped up.
Politicians are fundamentally attention-seekers, and where
they’re not, they adopt the position to convey their agenda, like Leon and most
of the DA’s and other party members did.
Partial or full-blown megalomania is fairly rare, though. In South Africa it’s reserved to a few. Zuma was one and Julius Malema adopted it as
a mask, a strategy to single the EFF out among other parties but he’s too
shrewd to be a genuine megalomaniac.
It’s not a psychological diagnosis, but Zille’s public
profile tends toward megalomania. She’s egocentric,
and her love of attention, using available media, her tweets egregious and
infamous, contributed to her self-destructive behaviour that impacted her
credibility and reputation.
Her psychopathy has led to the tenuous political situation
the DA finds itself in, unwilling or unable to control her. They’re now fighting for national relevance
having lost seats in the last elections.
Zille creates two
centres of power, and problems
The problem for the DA was it had two centres of power:
Zille running the Western Cape government in Wale Street, and party leader in
the National Assembly answering to her.
No matter how good one thinks one is at multi-tasking (in
management theory, multitasking is another way of doing many things badly) Zille
could not properly focus on effectively leading the DA’s national agenda and
their role as opposition while concerning herself with local politics and her
sideline as columnist and political analyst.
All this takes more hours than there is.
So she delegated – outsourced is a better word – the most
important job in the country for an opposition party. In any other occupation this is guaranteed to
fail. Not attending to one’s raison d’etre, like a mother delegating
mothering to a wet nurse, proves one is not serious about it.
Lindiwe Mazibuko
Zille appointed a young woman unknown outside DA and
parliamentary circles, Lindiwe Mazibuko, as leader in the House. In her early thirties, Mazibuko was
inexperienced and a relative newcomer to politics.
There is a truism the DA, or for that matter any party, needs
a black as leader. But there were far
better candidates, whites included if race was not a factor as until then it
had not been. If race was that important, why were the DA’s
Western Cape MECs and legislature members slightly more than 50% white, with them
in senior posts in a province and country where they were a minority?
This was a cynical move, a nod to political correctness Zille
never believed in, to select a black and
a woman for the job.
Mazibuko managed well, though. She impressed with her commitment,
intelligence, leadership and growing understanding of the issues. She was an eloquent speaker and with her upper
class white accent. The media was
thrilled about Zille’s all-woman “kitchen cabinet” with her, Mazibuko and Cape
Town mayor Patricia de Lille that regularly took place at Leeuwenhof.
And then it all fell apart. It had probably been simmering for a while but
rumours erupted there were serious differences between Zille and Mazibuko. It was confirmed when Zille announced
Mazibuko would be replaced, citing irreconcilable differences. Unflattering leaks, probably emanating from
Zille’s inner circle, was that Mazibuko threw her weight around and insisted DA
members address her as “madam leader”.
Mazibuko resigned her seat and from the DA. She enrolled at Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government for a master’s degree.
Whatever the problems between the two, it was inevitable
tensions would arise. Zille was
preoccupied elsewhere and Parliamentary and DA political management was left to
Mazibuko who Zille tried to remotely control.
Even if Mazibuko acted like an arse and let power go to her head, Zille
was more to blame. Who better to know
what had to be done at Parliament and nationally than Mazibuko. It was Zille who was out of step, a
miscalculation and blunder she repeatedly made during the decade.
To her credit, Mazibuko did not to speak about the reasons
for the breakup except in vague terms unlike Zille who was more forthcoming,
tantalising with hints. She never took
blame for anything. The reasons for the
split are still not entirely clear.
Mmusi Maimane
Mazibuko’s replacement was Mmusi Maimane, another unknown
black in his early thirties.
Wilmot James, former sociology professor at UCT, was among
those who contested the leadership. He
was a respected, experienced politician and published academic and
intellectual. But he was brown, which in
this country’s thinking made him ineligible even for the purported non-racial
DA where only white and black matter. He
would have been a fine leader in the tradition of Leon and his predecessors.
Maimane was clearly Zille’s man. But he lacked her or Mazibuko’s
intellect. He tried hard, too hard even,
and said the right things. But one got
the impression he read from a script someone else had prepared, likely party
executives who were Zille loyalists.
Under him the DA began visibly to veer from its traditional
centre liberalism to centre-right. I
don’t know what, if any, role Zille personally played in this but James was
concerned about it. Around 2016 when
this debate was going on in the DA, Leon reportedly told a media personality there
were no liberals left in the party.
By then my disquiet about Zille and DA, which had been
building since 2011, reached its peak. I
knew both were lost.
Maimane gradually came into his own but rather than it been endearing,
he was too strident and unconvincing. In
2017/18 during Cape Town’s water crisis he and national DA leaders interfered
by reading the riot act to De Lille and DA-run city and appointing finance
mayco Ian Neilson as crisis manager (see part 3 of this series about the
DA). He had no legal authority to do
so. De Lille didn’t like it and ought to
have told them to mind their business.
Maimane and DA also had a role in De Lille’s persecution and
forced resignation from the party and as mayor.
The DA expected her to go quietly like a loyal cadre, Mazibuko for
example, but she refused, taking them to court three times and winning each time. Chief whip John Steenhuisen wrote a forensic
report and produced an affidavit from a Durban-based businessman implicating De
Lille in alleged irregularities five years before which really were sour grapes
about him not winning a city contract. Like
Steenhuisen’s report, his alleggations had no substance.
Maimane was silent during the scandal as allegations and
counter allegations flew and the effect of lowering morale they had on the DA
in the city council – the DA caucus initially refused to pass a leadership-led
vote of no confidence against De Lille but the second one passed after DA
councillors were warned they had to. He
interfered in matters – water – that did not concern him but was absent when it
concerned the DA’s credibility and reputation as administrators of their crown jewel,
the City of Cape Town.
Zille too interfered in the water crisis (like De Lille, she
gaslighted citizens) but was silent about the De Lille debacle. It’s strange and suspicious both she and
Maimane did or said nothing, not calling for calm heads, although that might
have happened privately. But in politics
public impression is all that matters.
So their silence was because the campaign was orchestrated
by national DA, and since Zille is a control freak, it was with her and
Maimane’s blessing. Steenhuisen’s hatchet
job report, later withdrawn, that contained only rumour and hearsay proved it.
When the trouble with De Lille started, she said the DA
wanted a black as mayor but refused to play along. If true, the irony is the DA’s 2021 mayoral candidate
is a young white male.
Maimane had a chance to exert his influence and authority
over Zille but when it came to it, he faltered.
In 2017 Zille tweeted colonialism was not all bad. After manufactured outrage from ANC and left,
Maimane entered the fray and during a radio interview declared she was racist
and would be investigated. True to form
that she’s always right, Zille doubled down and tweeted she had nothing to
apologise for. She said she if necessary
she would go to court to defend herself.
Naturally, this incident provoked hot debate, including an
article I wrote in Politicsweb, with
her supporters fully behind her. Given
the serious allegations including her contravening the DA’s social media policy
and defiance, analysts speculated about the punishment the disciplinary panel
would impose, a guilty finding expected.
In the end it was a damp squib, Zille unrepentant to the
end. She reluctantly apologised and with
bad grace. Her punishment was a slap on
the wrist which was to not make any comments to the media and social media for
a period. I suppose with her always seeking
the limelight it was a punishment of sorts but hardly significant and nothing
compared to the later action brought against De Lille.
Following the party’s poor performance in 2019’s election
and self-analysis and recriminations over their loss in Schweizer-Renecke’s white
ward (Zille commissioned an inquiry but the DA treated losses in brown and
black wards in Cape Town in municipal by-elections immediately after the
election philosophically), relations between them were strained. The DA blamed Maimane for their poor
performance.
Zille was no longer premier of the Western Cape having
served two terms. She had signed on as a
fellow of the rightwing Institute of Race Relations, she and DA having
informally used them as election consultants. But when elections for the vacancy of chair of
the DA’s executive committee were held, she was nominated and overwhelmingly
won and resigned from the IRR after only a couple of months.
Maimane and Zille parted ways after Zille’s win, he
permanently when he resigned his seat and the party. There is a picture of Zille and Maimane at the
elective conference, standing about a metre apart, faces grim, bodies turned
from each other. In his press statement announcing
his resignation, he said he was undermined by party leaders and was not
prepared to accept blame for the election results. He described conditions in the party,
conditions former Johannesburg mayor also spoke of in his resignation that
included power blocks, bias and bigotry.
He and Maimane formed a civil society group together.
The DA hired conservative political analyst RW Johnson to
conduct a post-mortem of the elections.
His findings showed a party in disarray and having lost its way. Johnson was a Zille and DA supporter before but
in the period around the elections he had been increasingly critical. DA and especially the conservative faction
hoped her as chairwoman of the party would stabilise it and put it back on the
path, but that’s like a gambler believing another throw of the dice will turn
his losses around. Also Jon Cayzer’s, a
former DA speechwriter and now London-based consultant, trenchant analysis of
the DA decline in Politicsweb is a
must-read.
In the period before the 2019 elections I hoped Zille would
go quietly into retirement, perhaps write another memoir, but I had not counted
on her determination, her intense need for attention and validation. Like Zuma, she’s proving to be very difficult
to get rid of.
Mamphela Ramphele and
Agang
The DA’s shaky reputation, much of it self-generated, was
severely damaged by the water crisis and De Lille saga. To a number of people, except her supporters,
Zille’s credibility was getting threadbare.
In 2019, Mamphela Ramphele, an intellectual, high-profile
activist and former well-regarded vice-chancellor of UCT, found political party
Agang to contest the general election.
She said she had important backers.
This was just another party among many in the space.
Out of the blue Zille held a press conference and announced
DA had formed an alliance with Ramphele and Agang. Ramphele would be the face
of the combined parties’ election campaign.
This was greeted with astonishment. Obviously the DA leadership knew Zille and
Ramphele had been in talks but the rest of the party, analysts and public were
confused. Ramphele was a respected
figure but she was not a politician and Agang was a brand new, shoe-string
operation. What need would the DA have
for them?
The alliance was Zille’s idea and decision, though. The only explanation was she felt the DA
needed a black face, and a well-known one, to go against the ANC. Her appointee Maimane was clearly no longer
good enough. It was true, though. He lacked gravitas.
But it quickly transpired Ramphele had other ideas. After a brief coy courtship between her and
Zille, she said she would not resign from Agang and represent both Agang and DA
at Parliament. This did not go down well
with Zille. Apparently she expected the
DA to absorb Agang like De Lille’s one-woman party, ID, in after 2006.
Zille tried damage control and to convince Ramphele to
change her mind. But soon after she
announced the alliance was cancelled, citing Ramphele’s intransigence. Anyway, Ramphele could not have dual
membership which indicated her naiveté.
Analysts and media were beside themselves. What was Zille thinking? How had she thought Agang could bring
anything to the table except a black face, and why did she think Ramphele would
be a walkover and not have her own agenda?
The most pressing question was how did an allegedly smart politician
make this kind of mistake? But Zille
fucked up (again) and trusted Ramphele, the kind of mistake a gullible amateur
makes.
Zille was turning out to be a serial blunderer by her poor
choice of leaders and strategy. Her
extracurricular activities like questionable comments and tweets didn’t help
and added to questions about her credibility.
But neither she nor her apologists held her responsible.
Zille and Western
Cape government corruption
Zille’s regulatory
capture
Zille had a check against her as mayor of Cape Town for stating
despite evidence to the contrary the World Cup 2010 stadium’s funding was in
order and would not impact the city’s finance (see part 3 of this series of
articles). However, I still had
confidence in her in and a few years later in her as premier of Western Cape.
But it was in 2011/12 that I discovered the person and
politician behind the suave mask: liar, manipulator, opportunist, venal, abused
her office and corrupt, as defined by the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities
Act.
In 2011 her government pressurised independent Western Cape
agency CapeNature to permit widespread culling of predators including the Cape
leopard. This was made public by
government employee and whistleblower Dr Bool Smuts. Zille denied it.
The allegation should have been newsworthy because if true
it indicated malfeasance by Zille, her cabinet and government. The allegation received some media reporting,
confined to a piece in the Cape Times,
but was largely ignored by Cape Argus and its environment writer John Yeld
because the environment was not deemed newsworthy and papers and Yeld were
pro-Zille and DA.
Smuts had taken to posting jeremiads against Zille,
environment MEC Anton Bredell and CapeNature on his Facebook page and one was
left with the impression he was a crank.
But I investigated and found his allegations were true.
Around the beginning of 2011, Zille, Bredell and agriculture
MEC attended a meeting in Bredasdorp where farmers complained about livestock
losses to predators. They threatened to
“take matters into their own hands”, i.e. criminal acts. In
September 2011 at a CapeNature board meeting attended by the visiting two MECs and farmer
representatives, a resolution was passed with the concurrence of the visitors
to change the existing policy to permit almost a million hunting licences to
farmers, far above allowed till then.
Each farmer was allowed more than one kill. (See Landmark Foundation’s
website and Facebook page.)
First, the attendance of not one but two Western Cape
cabinet members was highly unusual and proved political pressure. Second, the minute noted the resolution was
passed with their approval. This was a
private board meeting and visitors had no business attending, never mind
participating in a vote. The vote thus
was illegal.
The MECs would not have attended the meeting without Zille’s
knowledge and approval – she’s a control freak.
Therefore, her denial of political pressure was a lie. It was
regulatory capture for the agri-industry, a DA donor.
The DA is highly protective of agriculture. Around then the DA government threatened an
NGO with legal action that issued a report of poor working conditions and abuse
of workers on Western Cape farms. Two
years ago they formed an ad hoc crisis committee after one farmer was
murdered in likely an opportunistic killing (the rightwing believe there’s
farmer genocide) but ignore thousands of murders and serious crimes in the
province particularly against woman and children.
In 2011 CapeNature destroyed a leopard at a Ceres farmer’s
behest. CN’s acting director lied to the
public claiming the animal was injured.
But the Malmesbury vet who killed it found it was healthy. Smuts took CapeNature and the government to
court which ruled the killing was illegal.
The government then persecuted Smuts, whose day job is
district manager for the Western Cape Health Department, for three years on
trumped-up disciplinary charges of allegedly insubordination against Zille, his
purported employer (she’s not, WCHD is). The complaint related to his whistleblowing
and probably emanated from Zille or her circle.
Note she and DA pursue fake charges against employees and members (De
Lille) but refuse to investigate alleged fraud, assault and homicide against
WCHD doctors.
The Labour Court dismissed the charges against Smuts. Zille and her government wasted money on
lawyers for three years. Wasteful
expenditure is a penalty under finance laws but the DA claim they’re good
governors. Zille too has never hesitated
to use public money to defend herself against ombud findings.
In 2012 Zille called a multi-group public forum to discuss the
predator “problem”. However, critics
Smuts, ANC’s Max Ozinsky and I were denied entry. At the meeting Zille emphasised her
government’s commitment to protect farmers.
A postscript to this story is farmers refuse to adopt
predator-friendly animal husbandry even when it was sponsored and free. They couldn’t be bothered. According to sources, they’re inefficient
and lazy and it’s convenient to claim their stock losses are due to predators
when there are other reasons too. With
supermarket chain buyers insisting on ethical farming, Woolworths told me farmers
“lie on audit reports”, claiming they farm ethically when they don’t.
At the time this was happening, CapeNature had suspended its
CEO, a black woman, allegedly for misconduct.
However, two sources said the organisational environment was toxic and
her suspension had more to do with her refusal to accede to the Zille
government and farmers’ request. The
acting CEO was compliant and lied to push the culling policy through. He was unrepentant. Cape Argus’ John Yeld conducted a sweetheart
interview on his retirement a year later.
The Afrikaner farming
sector is mostly conservative to rightwing with old racial and social ideas. The rightwing view the environment as a
source to be exploited for capital gain and not conserved for its own
good. It’s no surprise Zille personally
and DA associates with them.
Two independent complaints about Zille’s cabinet’s pressure
on CapeNature from me and Ozinsky were laid with the public protector who said
there was prima facie evidence and it
was “politically sensitive”. However,
for reasons that were not disclosed, the case was buried by Thuli Mdonsela.
If it was taken to its conclusion it would have been a
serious problem and embarrassing for Zille, her government and DA. This shows the ombud and Mdonsela personally acted
out of consideration for politics like the National Prosecutions Authority and
police do (see part 1 of the series).
Zille promotes son’s
tender
A second case that implicated Zille in political patronage
and pressure was with her son’s tender to the Western Cape Education Department
to supply computer tablets to schools.
She wrote to the tender committee urging them to quickly decide. When it became public, she said she was not
expressly supporting her son’s bid but urged haste because any delay
disadvantaged pupils.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a
duck. First, Zille or any politician and
uninvolved bureaucrat had no business communicating with the committee which is
supposed to be independent, at all about bids.
That she did is irregular.
Second, bureaucrats and underlings are almost always
susceptible to pressure or suggestion from their superiors in whatever form. When they’re not they meet the fate of De
Lille and Mazibuko.
Third, Zille mentioned her son’s company by name. If
that’s not a direct endorsement then what is.
What happened here was influence peddling. Health minister Zweli Mkhizi lost his job
this year in similar circumstances when a contract was given to a company
associated with his son despite him claiming he had no direct role in awarding
the contract. This was corruption so how
could Zille’s actions not be? She’s lived
a charmed life.
During her reign Zille showed irritation with government
supply chain and auditing procedures claiming it was an alleged hindrance to
effective government. She wanted them
changed and streamlined despite having only a vague understanding of accounting
and auditing. It’s no surprise she felt
she could bypass the procedure with her son’s contract, which he got. While the ANC abuse finance procedures, not
even they claim the laws and procedures are unnecessary.
Zille, DA’s worst enemy
Zille boasted she interfered in matters where she had no
jurisdiction or where it was best left alone.
She got involved in government tenders, called Eskom and told them they
should not load shed a Western Cape town, pressurised a department to change
policy that suited lazy and lying DA donors and interfered in a criminal
investigation against government employees (see part 1 of this series).
But she chose not to get involved where she ought to have. She has a history of making the wrong
decisions and they are costing the DA dearly.
This is because of her huge ego.
She’s the DA’s worst enemy, and has been for a decade since taking
leadership.
Under her influence the DA will continue to lose support,
dropping to 20% or below at the next general election. Conservative whites have FF+, and with De
Lille’s GOOD hastily formed before 2019’s election established by then, DA’s disaffected
working class brown particularly on the Cape Flats may consider it worthwhile,
leaving only moderate rightwing whites and browns voting DA in worthwhile
numbers. The local elections this year
will indicate the trend and their fortunes.
But they seem unable to change, Steenhuisen’s win as party
leader indicating both Zille’s support for him and the cul-de-sac of their
strategy and ideology. The Covid-19
pandemic shows how out of touch with the real world they are and how far from
liberal thinking they’ve moved.
Over the past two years with Covid-19 showing no signs of
abating, Steenhuisen and to a lesser extent Western Cape premier Alan Winde who
has shown more moderation and sense, with their soft pandemic denialism have
consistently called for ending lockdowns which except for the first wave in
2020 were already moderate even during the infection peaks.
The pandemic proved that liberal democracy works especially
in crisis, here providing universal vaccinations and subsidies to needy
people. If it was left to the rightwing
like DA, it would have been every (rich) man for himself like Johann Rupert who
used his wealth to jump the line for a vaccination. These are the people the DA are really
concerned about.
The DA is now irrelevant, a shadow of itself only ten years
ago and Zille, once one of the country’s brightest politicians, has played a
large part in their decline.
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