Maimane drawn into ugly DA race row
THE race-tinged public spat between Western Cape premier Helen Zille and a senior DA colleague threatens to air the party’s dirty laundry in the runup to next year’s local government elections.
Zille and Lennit Max, a member of the provincial legislature and a former provincial police commissioner, have shown the Sunday Times their e-mail exchanges.
Now both DA leader Mmusi Maimane and the party’s federal executive chairman, James Selfe, have been drawn into the fray.
Max has accused Zille of trying to end the careers of black DA leaders who disagreed with her — citing his own case and those of former Agang SA leader Mamphela Ramphele, Western Cape MPL Masizole Mnqasela, former DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, and former DA federal chairman Wilmot James.
Max told Zille in one e-mail: “There is a duty on Mmusi Maimane and the rest of the DA leadership to call you to order urgently and to ensure that you stop what you are busy doing in order to protect the DA (and black people in the party) as well as the voters’ interest.”
He said he would not allow Zille to drive him out of the party.
“The DA doesn’t belong to you. It is a party for all the people, by all the people (inclusive of blacks like me and others who disagreed with you) and stands for freedom, fairness and opportunities.
“Your actions are in contrast with these values and place the DA in serious danger,” he wrote.
The infighting comes after a week of drama over the socalled “Zille spy saga”, during which the ANC tried to impeach the premier. Zille has accused Max of:
Blackmailing her to give him a provincial cabinet position, and of meeting Maimane and Selfe on the issue;
Inventing fictitious spy and defamation stories; and
Being an ANC source along with former Western Cape leader Theuns Botha in the spy claims saga.
Max has denied trying to pressure Zille into giving him a provincial cabinet position and accused Zille of making a malicious effort to end his career.
The Western Cape ANC and DA have been at each other’s throats following revelations that in 2010 Zille’s cabinet hired Eagle Eye Solutions Technology, a company owned by police crime intelligence officer Paul Scheepers, to make sure that no one was bugging their cellphones.
Asked for comment yesterday, Maimane said: “He [Max] asked that certain positions must be made available for him. I assured him that it didn’t matter what position it was, it’s not for me to determine that.
“I don’t create positions for people in the party . . . that is a matter for government.”
He said he had recently returned to South Africa after a trip and would deal with a letter Max had sent him.
Selfe said he had also received a letter from Max and would confer with Maimane.
James denied Max’s assertion that Zille had acted against him. “No, in respect of me, no,” said James.
He said he did not know why Max would have made such allegations, adding: “You will have to ask him.”
DA MP Makashule Gana, who has previously clashed with Zille, said he had never been victimised for differing with her. He said the public spat was not a “tactic” that he would employ because it did not do the party any good.
“It doesn’t reflect well on us and also our prospects of growing.” — Additional reporting by Gareth van Onselen, Jan-Jan Joubert and Piet Rampedi
Your actions contrast with these values and place the DA in danger