South Africa politician faces suspension over tweet

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), said on Saturday its former leader Helen Zille faced being suspended over a tweet in which she said colonialism brought benefits to the country.

The DA, which won 22 percent of the vote in the last general election, hopes to make major gains in the 2019 vote, but it has struggled to shed its image as a “white” party.

South Africa remains deeply divided more than 20 years after the end of white-minority apartheid rule, as stark racial inequality leaves millions of black people with poor housing, education and job opportunities.

Mmusi Maimane, the DA’s first black leader, said Zille’s social media posts “in connection with colonialism undermine our reconciliation project.”

Zille, who is the current premier of Western Cape province, vowed that she would not “plead guilty to charges of misconduct which I never committed.”

On Saturday, the DA initially announced that she was suspended before changing its position to say a final decision would be made after she has been given the chance to defend herself.

In the contentious tweet, which was sent in March, Zille wrote: “For those claiming legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water.”