Virtual spat unfitting for party leader

THE weekend tweeting spat between Helen Zille and young DA MPL Mbali Ntuli highlights a very real problem within the ranks of the DA.

Gareth van Onselen has enunciated that the DA had lost its intellectual thrust and that DA parliamentarians were behaving like automatons working only to instructions from the top. This rings very true.

It is not to say that DA MPs are not intelligent, it is just that Zille will not let them use their brains because they may well expose her shortcomings.

So it is with Ntuli, a bright, energetic youngster who has carved out a career for herself, not by being silent and sycophantic, but by being outspoken and forthright. Something which Zille simply cannot get her head around.

Imagine the effrontery, a young upstart with the chutzpah to speak directly to power and not be afraid to do it. Zille is not used to being challenged, so instead of warmly welcoming the comments from the premier to Ntuli congratulating her on a good DA submission in the legislature she sends out a spiteful and sarcastic tweet.

It is interesting to note that she has since backed down, but the damage to her reputation has exponentially grown and surely within the DA ranks there are those who could inform her that behaving like a pubescent schoolgirl does not become the leader of the official opposition.

Social media is all-knowing and Zille would do well to recognise that to air her personal internal animosity does her party no good and certainly does not enhance her rapidly tarnishing image.

FINLEY DUNNE Durban