Love or hate her, Helen Zille remains the best potential president for our country

Love or hate her, Helen Zille remains the best potential president for our country. Anyone who can wrest an entire province from the top-heavy ANC in one bang shoot must possess attributes, like stickability and political will to accomplish what appeared to be impossible.

For the first time in our history, we witnessed political audiences resembling a mosaic of different colours at her rallies leading up to that watershed election when the DA wiped the floor with the ANC. What tipped the scales in her favour? What was the thrust of her message to what was an extremely diverse electorate?

Simple. She had a plan of action that said “I’ll deliver” in the Western Cape. And she did just that. So why is she no longer on the complex political scene? Particularly now when the country needs her type of leadership, both in the DA and ANC? Why has she opted for the back burner?

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Irony of ironies, there was a time when she helped attack the National Party in the ’70s and championed the ANC cause. Younger readers are probably unaware that Zille was a journalist on the anti-Nat Rand Daily Mail. She exposed the cover-up around the death of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko. (I got to know of Zille through fellow hacks who highly respected her and that she “stood her round” in their favourite watering hole. Clever lady. What better source for hot news “leads”?)

For her to have changed loyalties, the ANC for which she fought, must have undergone drastic changes. However, her principals haven’t changed, treating the backslidden Zuma ANC in the same way as she had done with the Nats. So why is she not leading?

The answer is open to conjecture, but my oversimplified version says she’s too good; a threat to the weaklings in the DA who probably find her too bossy. And she reminds the ANC of the Mandela era, and how it fell from grace.

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Whatever the reason, I say to Helen: stand up, cut a swathe through the papbroeke, mundane and inconsequential, insisting on policies addressing key issues. And rather than pointing out the failures of the ANC, of which we are all too aware, tell us what you can and will do.

Show the matador how it’s done, without the bull.