By: Chinelle Stevens
Yesterday’s utterances by DA Federal Chairperson Helen Zille about the inclusion of the Patriotic Alliance in the Government of National Unity (GNU) show that she clearly believes she must have signed an agreement with the ANC that means the ANC must now do the DA’s bidding.
She intends to “complain” about not being “consulted” enough, despite the ANC having made it clear that they invited the PA and other parties into the GNU long before signing any document with the DA.
What Helen Zille clearly fails to grasp is that the PA also signed a Statement of Intent to form part of the GNU on the same day the DA did – and there can be no possible reason for the ANC to have to ask for the DA’s permission to include willing parties in a grand coalition that can govern the country with or without the DA. The GNU is still in the process of being constituted. Until it is, Helen Zille does not need to be “consulted”. We will all happily listen to her opinions later, once it is, and no doubt she will provide them.
It was and remains the ANC’s decision to invite all parties to join its GNU. The DA decided to be one of those parties, but Helen Zille now wants to act as though the DA has the right to be the gatekeeper for the ANC.
As the PA, we would be lying if we say we are shocked. We have been victims of such shortsighted vindictiveness at the hands of Zille and the DA more times than we can count.
Her style of negotiation is to humiliate instead of finding consensus. It must always be her way or the highway.
By agreeing to join the GNU, the PA showed a willingness to bury the hatchet with the DA. We joined the GNU because we must now put South Africa first.
The real issue here is that the DA, by its leader’s own admission, sees the Western Cape as its entitlement, its homeland, and no other party should dare go there to campaign, lest they upset John Steenhuisen.
The PA not only dared, but we have enjoyed great political success in the Western Cape. The
DA’s obsession with keeping us out of its provincial fortress has now sadly spilled over to the GNU. We call on the ANC to recognise this moment, dismiss Helen Zille’s sour grapes and petty provincial conceits, and do the right thing for South Africa.
To allow the DA to dictate to the ANC who it can and cannot invite into its coalition government will send only one message, that Helen Zille finally has the entire ANC exactly where she wants it: doing her bidding.
Helen Zille can only be satisfied when she is obeyed without question. Power has turned her into the very thing she once fought against: deranged demagoguery.
We as the PA will now await the next move of the ANC with interest. We thought the GNU was about putting party differences aside and working together for the good of South Africa and its citizens. Even the DA leader in his first speech in Parliament emphasised this.
Perhaps we are the ones with the dementia, though, and instead it is about Helen Zille thinking she is in charge of the new Government of National Unity.
* Chinelle Stevens is the Secretary-General of the Patriotic Alliance
