I do not see how COSATU had any credibility in their ridiculous claim. Zille appointed people she felt were fit for the job. If we were to look at representation in terms of percentage in the National cabinet we’d find that it isn’t representative of the demographics. If the ANCYL members had even ONE braincell (combined) they would have waited for the MEC’s of the WC to get around to doing their job and comment on how they did their job. If Zille’s hand is forced and she appoints people who are not the best purely to appease the dimwits who hurl abuse and ahout nonsense, and the new MEC’s do a terrible job then she can blame the ANC. The ANC in turn would claim that the DA has failed to deliver service delivery. If Zille makes no changes and her current team does what they’ve promised then what can the ANC do about that? Nothing once thet’ve shown their worth. The more airtime that is given to this non-issue is where the problem lies.

I generally agree with Prof but I do not at all see how the current ramblings of COSATU benefit the principles of good governance, the Constitution, democracy or the Western Cape. I also note that one cannot truly attack a political leader of cronyism where they appoint people who would support them unless such people do not have the requisite capacity to do their jobs or have shown blind loyalty and disregard for the law.

I further wish to note that Zille had no real intention of being an MP in these elections. She was mayor of CPT and that was not a matter for the elections. Her face, appeared on the National and Provincial ballot papers in KZN too. As she had no intention of being in the National Assembly and she has before appointed another person (woman) as the Parliamentary Leader of the DA I fail to see how this shows anyone she is power hungry. The DA is winning support through performance, best done in tiers. The ANC has realised this and is really on a massive drive to discredit Zille, pathetic. It would be wonderful if people would stp seeing the world through tainted eyes and pure prejudice to that which is different or that you do not understand. Lastly, could people have critical thoughts for a refreshing change. Shouting racism simply because she’s white is senseless. Let the lady govern as she sees fit.

Here’s just a little of that.

1. Clara // May 13, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Helen explained (this morning, on radio) that she would have liked to have some women in her cabinet, but it so happened that the top-drawer candidates she had in mind had all put their names down for the DA’s shadow cabinet in Parliament.

And another post:

Extract of Letter to the Editor of the Argus. From Helen Zille:
1. The ANC, in all its 90 years of existence, has never elected (or deployed)a woman as its leader. The DA has done so within the first ten years of its existence. In fact, until recently, both the DA’s national leader and Parliamentary leader were women.
The ANC’s alliance partners, the SACP and COSATU, are also led by men. And, more significantly, the ANC’s leader, Jacob Zuma, is a self-confessed womanizer with deeply sexist views, who put all his wives at risk by having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman. Even after this the ANC women’s league strongly endorsed his Presidential campaign. Their professions of support for women’s rights ring hollow indeed against this background.
While some of the ANC’s senior women achieved their positions on merit, others are well known “quota appointments”. The ANC can therefore pretend to be serious about women’s rights, while actually patronizing women who want to be recognized for their ability.
Jacob Zuma is able to make all his quota and politically expedient appointments because he has extended his Cabinet (including deputy Ministers) to a ludicrous 62 members — at taxpayers’ expense.
In contrast, Provinces are confined by law to 10 MECs drawn from the list elected to the provincial Parliament.
Zuma’s expanded cabinet will cost an extra R19 million in salaries alone, before adding the cost of all the staff and perks to which they are entitled. But the real power remains firmly in the hands of the ‘big men’.
This is blatant hypocrisy. When women are appointed to meet a quota, it is an insult to every woman who has achieved her position through adding value, such as women in the DA.
By paying lip-service to the empowerment of women, the ANC is also promoting the mindset that only women can care about the issues affecting women, or do something about them. The same applies to the ANC’s warped logic regarding race, which says that only black people can care about black people, that only whites can care about whites and so on. This is racist nationalist thinking which goes against the letter and spirit of our constitution. It is also something that every intelligent South African should reject.
In the DA we believe that human beings can care for each other regardless of race or gender. The real test of democratic equality is how well services are delivered to everyone, on an equatible basis, not the colour or gender of the people delivering them.
Helen Zille
Premier of the Western Cape

Good thinking!! Good strategy. Hell, if Zuma can have R 70 million rand in pending damages cases, why can’t HZ. The DA certainly doesn’t get the funding that the ANC gets for election campaigns.

lol i totaly agree, i was actually thinking about this last night.

The thing is the ANC is on full war with the DA they have the arrogance to say they will put pressure on Zille to make sure she delievers on service but yet the ANC couldnt even do that for the Cape.

The stragedy is to put Zille on defence.

If i was Zille:

1) i would set a group to target the ANC to catch them out on miss managment of funds like reported in the news the Housing initiative gave money to the ANC to spend on campaigning instead of being used for housing.

2) I would have her spokeman to do all the talking on her behalf.

3) I would have Zille sue the ANCYL and partners for every defamation that is uttered, pop that cash into trust becuase by the time the next elections pops up she would have saved that money to match R200million for campaigning. Hit the ANC where it hurts there personnal bank accounts

4) Make sure her boyz are constantly in the news for service delievery in there required field.

5) Make sure Zille is seen chatting to the poor and personnaly delievering on her promises and making big noises about it.

6) focus her legal team to challenge the NPA dropping charges and getting McCarthy and Nqcuka to tesitfy.

just my thoughts

There’s another matter that worries me a little. You said “… Zille appointed a ten-man cabinet of varying ability to try and placate her political enemies within the DA. This will allow the Alliance to argue that Zille is guilty of the worst kind of cronyism and that her attacks on ANC cronyism is hypocritical and self-serving”. Can you substantiate this, to my mind, rather serious allegation?

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3086&art_id=vn20090520121200899C435756

What is amazing is how the ANC are going to focus their attention on “issues” raised in their election manifesto to “get” at HZ.

Why can’t they focus on these issues as a means of actually providing service and assisting their people? If they had done that in the first place, they might not have lost the Western Cape.

They appear to be as blinkered as the previous regime in their “Rooi Gevaar” mindset. It has just been replaced with a “Zille Gevaar”. But I suppose that where you have a revolutionary party, it’s far easy to revolt than to actually settle down to the mundane job of fulfilling your mandate and governing.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=79&art_id=vn20090521123801280C151426

Once again, I reiterate that Zille’s perceived paranoia is founded in reality.

Spuy my mate, didn’t you read that all the O3 is being blown out of the skies by gasses emanating from guys like you?

lol spuy no but i must admit i do miss the little tiger maybe he is brushing up on his legal skills, but its ok we got you so dont stress. But i also must admit ive got a deeper understanding of Mzo.