Zille says she doesn’t think her actions have impacted DA’s performance

The party's former leader believes that race-based politics is what caused them to lose voters to the ideological right.

DA’s federal Chairperson Hellen Zille. Picture: Neil McCartney

Speaking to 702’s Bongani Bingwa on Monday morning in an effort to clear up misinterpretations of her recent column, former DA leader and Western Cape premier Helen Zille stated that she did not believe her tweets about colonialism and controversies surrounding her leadership affected the DA’s performance in the recent national election.

This after Bingwa quoted a section from her column on his show and later shared the tweet, incorrectly labelling the quote a reflection “on bringing in black leaders into the DA”.

“I have only myself to blame. I was the one who mounted and saddled the Tiger. I thought we could manage it. When I dismounted it attacked me. What did I expect?” writes Helen Zille, apparently reflecting on bringing in black leaders into the DA. Your thoughts? #702Breakfast

— Bongani Bingwa IG/TikTok: Bonglez (@bonglez) May 27, 2019

The quote was originally from her article published in Rapport at the weekend and later reported on by Business Day.

Zille took exception to Bingwa’s interpretation and the pair engaged in a back and forth online that resulted in the show’s producers calling Zille in an effort to allow her to clarify.

Quoted the translation in @BDliveSA – pic.twitter.com/JCr0dKZDat

— Bongani Bingwa IG/TikTok: Bonglez (@bonglez) May 27, 2019

“Well, Bongani you can read it exactly as I put it and it is right there on PoliticsWeb as a column, very easy to get. So you don’t have to go and read selective quotes and get interpretations from them, you can read what I said in English,” said Zille.

She went on to explain what she meant the “tiger that she mounted”.

“I did exactly the right thing. It was quite correct to diversify the DA. It was absolutely essential to do that, in fact. Where I was mistaken was to think that that would enable the DA to rise above the politics of race and focus on politics of principle and policies that could help South Africa rise above poverty and awful unemployment rates.”

Quoted as written in the Business Day. The quote is contextualized as your apparent “regret” that diversifying DA leadership would help party rise above race based politics. Happy to chat to you to get clarity of this isn’t what you meant

— Bongani Bingwa IG/TikTok: Bonglez (@bonglez) May 27, 2019

When asked whether or not her actions, her leadership and the DA’s other public battles may have led to the party’s marginal loss in support after the 2019 elections, Zille answered in the negative and attributed their loss to what she called “race-based politics”.

“Well, you simply have to look at the results and where we lost votes. That’s all you have to do. You’ve just got to go look at the statistics and see if that’s true,” she said.

“The thing that really shook us was the question of the race-based politics and falling into the ANC/EFF’s race-based narrative that lost us huge numbers of votes to the right,” added Zille.

My analysis referred to satisfying the ANC on racial diversity when their yardstick was racial hegemony. That is what I very clearly said. Sad that you misrepresent this.

— Helen Zille (@helenzille) May 27, 2019

She went on to say that it was sad because the right wing stood for the kind of politics she stood against.

Listen to the full audio clip here.

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