Don’t call me Madam Premier, Zille tells journalist

Western Cape premier Helen Zille faced a “pre-trial meeting” with the DA’s Federal Executive on Friday to determine whether she will ultimately lose her membership of the DA after being suspended from all party-related activities earlier this week for her tweets on colonialism.

eNCA’s Annika Larsen, who was assigned to cover the story in Cape Town, reported that the meeting was wrapped up quickly, with Zille facing a three-person bench, and a prosecutor in the form of Advocate Glynnis Breytenbach, a DA member of parliament.

Time frames were set for the filing of documents in the case, and agreed on the 30th of June as the date for another pretrial conference to set an official date for the disciplinary hearing.

Larsen said that when Zille had arrived in the morning, she had appeared to show clear unhappiness at having been suspended ahead of her disciplinary hearing. However, she had arrived in high spirits, even breaking into song, Jacob Zuma style.

She remains the premier of the Western Cape, something which has earned the DA strong criticism, particularly from the EFF, which warned this week it would reconsider its support of the party in the Johannesburg, Pretoria and Nelson Mandela Bay metros where the DA rules as the leading party in minority coalition governments.

Malema has always been disdainful of Zille, referring to her as “The Madam” from his days in the ANC.

Larsen said that when Zille left after the meeting, Zille told her not to call her “Madam Premier because nobody calls her that except for Julius Malema … so that clears that up then”.

Zille described her relationship with Maimane as one of “utmost respect”, but she thought that history would judge her for as not having done anything wrong.

She has maintained that her tweets have been misconstrued, arguing that she never expressed support for colonialism, only pointing out that in her opinion the legacy of colonialism was not “all bad”.