Rivals warm up as dance moves bring them closer
been positive. Several MPs who attended the event reported that the unhappiness in the party’s “old guard” with its new leadership appeared to be mellowing – although some said there was still a little “residual sulking”.
“Those who lost in the last election must just get over themselves,” said one MP.
While some refused to be drawn on the meeting, saying it was confidential, and others suggested there was still some “healing” that needed to be done in intra-party dynamics, most of those interviewed painted a picture of harmony.
This was the first breakaway caucus meeting to be held for the party’s new leadership after Mazibuko trumped Trollip in the race to be caucus leader with a majority of 50 to 31 in the party’s mid-term cau- cus election in October.
Mazibuko then radically reshuffled the party’s caucus.
She also consolidated the DA’s alliance with the ID by giving ID MP Lance Greyling the energy portfolio and Haniff Hoosen the economic development portfolio.
Trollip was appointed in the portfolio he had given Mazibuko, as DA spokesman on rural development and land re- form, prompting whispers that it was a tit-for-tat appointment.
Trollip had this to say: “We had a great breakaway and I enjoyed it.” He declined to elaborate. “I never talk about what we do in party breakaway meetings. The caucus has rules on confidentiality, which I respect.”
DA chief whip Watty Watson said the breakaway meet- ing had gone “very well”.
“It was a closed meeting. We hold these for every term of office,” he said.
“It was a team-building exercise, during which we looked at where the party is and at how we are fulfilling our task as the official party of opposition.
“We looked at areas of concern and jubilation.”
Mazibuko was not available to comment as she was in Germany. DA PARLIAMENTARY leader Lindiwe Mazibuko has rejected President Jacob Zuma’s “second transition” as a “smokescreen for failed leadership”.
Addressing the foreign affairs working group of the Free Democratic Party in the German Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, yesterday, Mazibuko said the paradox of South Africa was that “while the nation is strong, the capacity of the state is weak”.
Mazibuko said in her prepared speech that a lack of skills at municipal level; widespread corruption; the impunity of those who failed to deliver and the failure of those in charge to account for their mistakes were contributing to the collapse of governance.
“This is a question of a failure of political leadership from the top downwards,” she said.
Relating to the DA’s sister Liberal Party in Germany what the “real story” was behind the ANC’s second transition and the party’s debate on amending the constitution, Mazibuko said Zuma was being pummelled by three overlapping factors.
Power-hungry