Zille’s short and tweet colonialism apology
CODE BLUE: Former DA party leader Helen Zille, left, and current party leader Mmusi Maimane give a press conference on Tuesday. The party has removed Zille from its federal executive after a disciplinary hearing over a controversial tweet about colonialism THE DA appears to have climbed down from its demands as Helen Zille read out what appeared to be a watereddown apology compared with the party’s preference.
The Sunday Times has seen the draft apology the DA had prepared for Zille as part of the settlement that saw Zille keep her government job as Western Cape premier.
A careful examination of the final agreement Zille signed — as opposed to the drafts she had refused to sign — reveals the party has bent over backwards to accommodate her in an attempt to avoid a drawn-out battle in court.
Sources in the DA this week revealed that Zille had already been considering a peace deal as early as last Friday when she walked into her disciplinary hearing — with her lawyers insisting on her preferred wording of the truce agreement.
The Sunday Times has learnt that DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s chief of staff, Geordin Hill-Lewis, and DA head of strategy Gavin Davis acted as emissaries during the negotiations that took place over last weekend.
Maimane could not be reached for comment but Zille rejected suggestions that she had issued a watereddown apology.
“Absolutely not. Anyone who says so is lying. In fact, the final draft was toughened from the original. I don’t know who is leaking this fake news.”
She declined to respond to further questions, saying: “I have zero interest in discussing the details.
“But you can accept the departure point as fact. It was toughened.”
But scrutinising the five paragraphs Zille communicated to the public on Tuesday, the DA climb-down in her favour is unmistakable.
For the first paragraph, the DA leadership earlier proposed: “After a period of reflection, I recognise the profound offence I caused by tweeting with regard to colonialism. I therefore apologise unreservedly to the South African public for this tweet and my subsequent defence of it.”
In the final version, the word “profound” falls away and Zille apologises only for the content regarding the “legacy” of colonialism.
She also, critically, apologises to the South African public “who were offended by this tweet” and her subsequent “explanation” — not “defence” — as proposed by the leadership.
The second paragraph, dealing with the ills of colonialism, remained unchanged.
In the third paragraph, the leadership had at one stage required: