Reign of terror harms the party and country

Zille had broken down. Under Zille’s authoritarian leadership, the party’s internal culture has been defined by fear and paranoia — and Mazibuko bore the brunt of this.

Zille had decided to replace her in parliament with national spokesman Mmusi Maimane, and the DA’s Gauteng campaign was used as a platform to this end.

Since announcing her intention to leave, Mazibuko has offered no further comment on her decision and yesterday declined to discuss the federal executive meeting, which she did not attend.

Publicly, Zille and those aligned to her have sought to downplay the effects of Mazibuko’s departure by suggesting she had been offered the opportunity to be the candidate for the Gauteng premiership but had turned it down.

According to this version, her decision to go to Harvard was a “Plan B” because she knew she would lose a parliamentary leadership battle against Maimane. How Zille knew this, she has never explained.

But the real damage was inside the party, and, according to the account of Friday’s meeting published in the Sunday Times today, Zille used the opportunity to turn on Mazibuko .

She attacked Mazibuko’s competence, loyalty and track record, questioning many elements of her tenure as parliamentary leader and suggesting it was Mazibuko, not her, who had damaged their relationship. That, at the very least, constitutes evidence that things were not as they appeared.

But Zille now appears to be con- tradicting herself: if Mazibuko was the failure that she makes her out to be, why did the DA leader see fit to offer her the premiership candidacy for Africa’s major economic hub, which was also the centrepiece of the DA’s election campaign?

If things had deteriorated so badly between the two, and Zille really had so little faith in Mazibuko, why was that fact shielded from the public, and indeed from the party?

Her damning critique of Mazibuko would have been news to the federal executive. Either way, all is not as it seems. After the employment equity legislation debacle, in which Zille was complicit, she was at pains to state she had full faith in Mazibuko.

Offering the Gauteng premiership candidacy to Mazibuko suggests Zille believes leadership positions are hers to give and take; much like the secret talks she conducted with Mamphela Ramphele for years before the party formed an official committee to explore the possibility of her joining it.

Zille’s patronising statement that she “made” Mazibuko is testament to the authoritarian manner in which she seeks to control the DA.

No doubt she believes she is in the process of “making” Maimane too.