Zille ‘running a Cape Bantustan’

KABELO MASENG and SAPA

JOHANNESBURG - The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) says it will not take any militant action against Helen Zille over her remarks on President Jacob Zuma.

ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu said yesterday: “We have decided to close the matter and focus on what happens in our party. We cannot keep on talking about Zille.

“We have issued our statement expressing our thoughts on the matter and are now engaging on constructive issues that concern the well-being of our country,” said Shivambu yesterday.

Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande continued to lash out at Zille when he told a National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) congress in Boksburg that Zille was running a “Bantustan of a special order” in the Western Cape. She would fail to run it effectively, as she was preoccupied with other matters.

“I’m worried if Helen Zille is still together upstairs,” said Nzimande, who is also the general secretary of the SA Communist Party.

He said the Democratic Alliance (DA) leader was unable to explain why she had appointed an all-male provincial cabinet.

“She says, ‘No, I’m a woman and the City of Cape Town has been led by a woman, and the province is being led by a woman.’

“So, she is counting herself three times now,” Nzimande said to laughter from the audience. Zille argued that “as the DA, we care about women, because the mother of my children is a woman”.

Nzimande said Zille was trying to spoil the “good mood” in the country since the ANC won the general elections last month.