Ramphele backs out of deal with DA
THE DA and Agang SA have broken up – just five days after a surprise announcement that Agang SA leader Mamphela Ramphele would stand as the DA’s presidential candidate in the upcoming elections. Ramphele made the startling about-turn at a meeting with DA leader Helen Zille yesterday, much to her disappointment.
The pair announced last week that Ramphele would stand as the DA’s presidential candidate, effectively becoming the face of the party in the upcoming elections. Zille said after having chased her to join their ranks for years, she thought she had hooked her when Ramphele insisted last Monday to go public with their merger the next day.
But since the big announcement, Ramphele had been “playing a game of cat and mouse – telling the media one thing, Agang supporters another thing, and the DA another”.
“By going back on the deal, again, just five days after it was announced, Dr Ramphele has demonstrated – once and for all – that she cannot be trusted to see any project through to its conclusion. This is a great pity,” Zille said. The
meeting was meant to rubber stamp an earlier agreement that Ramphele and all her party’s branches, members and volunteers be incorporated into the DA.
Zille, who had described the parties’ merger as a game-changing moment, said Ramphele’s change of heart was a disappointment to “the many South Africans who were inspired by what could have been a historic partnership”.
“The DA negotiated with [her] in good faith. Indeed she is a long-time personal friend of mine and I sought to bring her into politics over many years.
“We have been through many false starts, but when Ramphele insisted on Monday that we go public on Tuesday to announce her acceptance of our offer of the DA’s presidential candidacy, we accepted that she had finally made up her mind,” Zille said. “The DA will nevertheless continue with its historic mission to build a non-racial political alternative in South Africa.”
Ramphele had accepted the presidential candidacy seemingly without prior consultation with her party’s branches.
Agang SA communications director Mark Peach said the party would hold a press conference this morning to clarify the issue.
He insisted, however, that Ramphele had never intended for the party to be simply absorbed into the DA‚ but for the two parties to merge into something bigger‚ better and more compelling.
She did not want to simply entrench party politics but to transcend it by creating something new.
Regarding the ultimate outcome‚ Peach said Agang’s position had never been that there would be a merger in which the DA simply co-opted and took over Agang‚ as this would have devalued Agang’s achievements. – Additional reporting by BDlive