No decision on Zille’s tweets yet
DA remains mum on whether party stalwart will or won’t face any disciplinary action over her gaffes, writes Siyabonga Mkhwanazi
THE political future of Western Cape Premier Helen Zille remains unclear with the DA refusing to say whether she will face disciplinary action over her colonialism tweets.
Head of the DA’S Federal Legal Commission Glynnis Breytenbach said yesterday it was not her call to decide whether Zille would face disciplinary action.
She said that decision lay with the federal executive committee.
However, she refused to say whether she had recommended action against Zille.
Breytenbach and Zille met in Cape Town yesterday over the controversial comments the Western Cape premier made on social media recently.
Breytenbach’s investigation was initiated after DA leader Mmusi Maimane lodged a complaint with the commission over Zille’s remarks.
The head of the commission said she was not going to decide on whether there should be any disciplinary action against Zille.
“It is not my decision and it is not the decision of the federal legal commission. I will submit my report to the federal executive committee and they will make a decision,” said Breytenbach.
Chairperson of the federal executive committee James Selfe said he would wait for the report to be submitted before a decision was taken.
“I have to wait for the report, and I have to consider the report. Until that happens I would not know what will happen. It will depend on when I receive the report and what I decide to do with it,” he said.
Zille caused an uproar on social media when she tweeted that not every aspect of colonialism was bad.
The ANC called for the DA to act against her, and the EFF strongly condemned the comments made by the former DA leader.
Zille was not the first DA leader to fall foul of the party’s social media policy.
DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard was also slapped with a sanction after she shared a comment from a journalist in Kwazulu-natal praising apartheid.
Kohler Barnard has since been moved as the party’s spokesperson on police, and is now the deputy spokesperson on public works.
The ANC in Parliament also came out strongly against the Zille comments on colonialism.
During the question and answer session with President Jacob Zuma in the Assembly a few weeks ago, ANC MPS called for action against her, saying she was reversing the gains made by the country in the past two decades.