Zille left fuming as caucus backs bill
Employment equity law ‘goes against party’s views’
A FURIOUS Helen Zille wrote a scathing e-mail to her caucus to berate them for supporting an employment equity law that is at odds with the Democratic Alliance’s philosophy.
The Sunday Times is in possession of the e-mail Zille wrote to the DA’s parliamentary management team last week, in which she rebukes them for “misleading” her caucus into voting in favour of the Employment Equity Amendment Bill, which goes against the values and policies of the party.
The angry e-mail was also sent to parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, whose leadership of the DA caucus has been questioned.
Zille acknowledged yesterday that she had sent the e-mail, saying it was her duty as party leader to raise such issues.
Heads are expected to roll and Zille is reportedly preparing to make changes that will rattle the DA in parliament.
The bill, which was passed by the National Assembly last month, seeks to regulate demographic representation in the workplace. The DA has prided itself in opposing any law that appears to either promote racial exclusion or offer economic advantage to one group over the other.
The DA has been harshly criticised for supporting the bill, with former party leader Tony Leon leading the fight. Writing in Business Day, Leon accused the party of “flip-flopping” on the matter and allowing the ANC to dominate the intellectual space.
The South African Institute of Race Relations said the DA seemed to be supporting the bill in the hope of securing the support of “born-free” South Africans ahead of next year’s elections.
In her confidential e-mail, Zille, who has tendered a public apology to DA supporters for the blunder, lambasted the caucus management team, saying it had failed to “spot” that the bill was against the party’s vision of creating an open-opportunity society.
“The whip group did not spot it, the whippery did not spot it, and there was clearly no process in place to determine the most important things that require attention from amongst the large
We are one party, and it is my responsibility as the leader to ensure that we act cohesively
number of bills and issues that parliament deals with,” she wrote.
Zille was even more damning about MP Sekamotho Motau, the DA’s member on parliament’s labour committee. He has since been removed from it.
Zille said he had failed to raise “the red flag” about the bill and “did not arm the caucus” with solid facts to be used to reject the bill.
She said DA spokesmen on labour either “did not read or ignored” the Western Cape gov- ernment’s views on the bill and had also failed to flag it as strategically important to the DA. She accused them of misleading the caucus.
“They did not arm the caucus with the necessary facts to make an informed decision. Indeed, if the correct facts had been tabled, we would probably have reached a different position.
“And, being caught on the back foot, we were unable to defend our position publicly. The memo submitted to the caucus was so defective as to be misleading.”
Motau declined to comment, saying that the matter was part of a confidential caucus discussion.
Mazibuko said yesterday that she took “full responsibility” for the political flop.
She said she was already putting systems in place to prevent such problems in future.
“As caucus leader, I take full responsibility for the faults in the process followed in deliberating on the [bill]. On Thursday, we resolved as a caucus to remedy the situation and I will be leading this process.”
Zille said she regarded the matter in a serious light and that she was aware that some of her MPs viewed her “intervention at caucus as interference”.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. We are one party, and it is my primary responsibility as the leader to ensure that we act cohesively and pull in the same direction.”
Mazibuko has previously denied accusing Zille of interference.