Cape Town — The Democratic Alliance (DA) federal chair, Helen Zille, revealed she has good memories of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) leader, Jacob Zuma, but added that he was still corrupt.
In an exclusive interview with Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Zille discussed topics such as her early life, her political career, Steve Biko’s death, the Government of National Unity Jacob Zuma and the MK Party. She praised Zuma for the friendliness he showed towards her in the past.
“Personally, I like Jacob Zuma. Jacob Zuma has always been unbelievably kind and nice to me and that’s just the bottom line, I am never going to say otherwise, because it wouldn’t be true. He was nicer to me than almost everybody in my party was,” she said.
“He was so kind to me, I mean before I went to my very first big overall cabinet lekgotla, where I was to be the only DA person there in 2009, he phoned me the night before and, you must remember I had just run an entire campaign saying Stop Zuma said he phoned me up the night before and says ‘You will be the only DA person there, the rest of us will be ANC but I want you to know you will be very warmly welcomed,’” Zille recounted.
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She said he had warmly welcomed her and always let her speak against him and what the ANC was doing. She said he was a kind person at heart but he was corrupt, adding that the two can work together. Zille also shared her thoughts on Zuma’s MK party.
“Well, I heard about it before. Last August I got tipped off that he was going to start a party and that was a time when my political analysis failed me because I thought this party couldn’t get anywhere,” she said.
“I mean, here’s a person who’s been so seriously implicated by the Zondo Commission in state capture been thrown out of the ANC effectively this and that there’s no way that a party led by him is going to have any traction. I’ve never been more wrong,” Zille added.
Zille claimed that the success of the MK party is the result of “identity politics.”
“It shows you the power of identity politics as people choose it themselves. I mean, that was a very powerful Zulu vote because they were saying, in my sense, don’t mess with the most senior Zulu person in politics today, because we all take it as an insult Now, that is people applying identity politics, but through their own volition, through the vote, Zille said.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
