Mbali Ntuli to Helen Zille: Take a bath, or risk developing anal fistula

The standoff between Western Cape Premier Helen Zille and DA KwaZulu-Natal MP Mbali shifted gears on Wednesday evening when Ntuli reminded Zille that “King Louis XIV only bathed twice in his life, and he had surgery on an anal fistula”.

Although not tweeting her Cape Town-based nemesis directly, Ntuli’s tweet was an unequivocal dig at Zille. TimesLive had earlier run a story in which the premier of the drought-stricken province denied allegations that she was subjecting citizens of the country’s fourth largest province to water restrictions that she herself did not abide by.

Mbali and Zille’s Twitter sparring matches are well-documented. Ntuli has repeatedly called out Zille for her tweets on race and colonialism.

In a complaint laid by Western Cape’s acting DA leader, the party isolated Ntuli from other black DA leaders who also expressed their discomfort with the tweets. Among those who shot back at Zille included MP Solly Malatsi, who was never censured.

When informed that the party intended to haul her before a federal disciplinary committee, Ntuli laid bare the fissures within her own party by questioning what she described as double standards for failing to apply the same approach to Zille’s tweets.

The former Cape Town mayor defended her party’s actions, and claimed Ntuli was charged long before and therefore her pending appearance before a disciplinary was just a matter of procedure. Ntuli refused to take this lying down.

Zille’s Twitter defence force included her chief of staff in her Wale Street office, Lorika Elliot. She accused Ntuli of never missing an opportunity to tackle her boss, and described Ntuli as the KwaZulu-Natal “version of Eusebius McKaizer”.

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