Ntuli hearing for Zille comments

RELATES TO POSTS ABOUT FORMER DA LEADER Party’s legal commission found her not guilty, but matter escalated to executive.

Yet another senior member of the Democratic Alliance, Mbali Ntuli, will have to run the gauntlet of a disciplinary hearing related to social media comments castigating Western Cape Premier Helen Zille.

Ntuli was the former DA Youth League leader and member of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature.

Despite the Federal Legal Commission (FLC) finding her not guilty, the matter has still been escalated to the federal executive for a disciplinary hearing.

The saga relates to multiple posts that could be considered anti-Zille. Zille also faces a disciplinary hearing for a number of tweets that many considered racist.

The charges against Ntuli were raised by interim Western Cape leader Bonginkosi Madikizela.

According to the FLC investigation charge sheet, Ntuli’s posts included:

“Helen has tweeted some outrageous things ... but she must defend them and face the counter arguments” and “as a party we should be clear about why some leaders can say whatever they want with impunity and others cannot” and “a little consistency would be nice”.

Another member of the public posted that Zille was a racist, a comment which Ntuli “liked”.

The FLC found it was clear from the debate that Ntuli’s posts caused no harm.

“There is no direct evidence to suggest that Ntuli’s post was insulting, derogatory, insensitive or unnecessarily offensive in nature or that her behaviour was unreasonable. Whether it was detrimental to internal cooperation within the party is debateable.”

James Selfe, chairperson of the federal executive, which has now taken up the matter, said Ntuli would face a disciplinary inquiry.

“Guilty or not, there at least has to be consistency,” he said, referring to MP Dianne Kohler Barnard’s hearing for sharing a post on Facebook which was pro-apartheid president PW Botha.

Ntuli’s hearing is expected before the end of the month.

“I’ll fight the charges, course,” she said.

Madikizela was unavailable for comment and Zille had not commented at the time of going to press.– of