By Alec Hogg
At BNC#5 in March, veteran politician Helen Zille sat silently in the front row while Gayton MacKenzie and Herman Mashaba laid into her. MacKenzie called her “batshit crazy”; Mashaba was angry at having been snubbed when Zille refused to accept his outstretched hand. These two party leaders later chummed up for a pic (above).
Zille, who clearly believes revenge is best served cold, eviscerated her rivals during our “nightcap” discussion that evening. One which ran for double the scheduled 45 minutes – I read the room, you could have heard a pin drop – so the recording is in two parts (click here for Part One; click here for Part Two).
___STEADY_PAYWALL___I have no idea how relationships between these three political players will develop as we head into the 2024 National Election. But from what the DA’s Fedex chair explained yesterday (click here to watch), MacKenzie has a mountain to climb – and Mashaba would do well to re-assess.
Zille says in Friday’s crucial Joburg Mayoral vote, Mashaba and the DA’s other Moonshot Pact partners were dropped by MacKenzie, just as she had predicted. MacKenzie’s PA had promised to support Mashaba’s candidate, ensuring no outright winner and forcing a second round of voting. Instead, the PA voted with the ANC/EFF alliance, embarrassing the opposition parties.
Once again the PA sided with the ANC, the political party it promised voters it would help eject. Zille reckons MacKenzie will always “default to the ANC” because of the benefits he enjoys from its patronage approach. After Friday in Joburg, it’s hard to disagree.
RW Johnson was on the money a few months back when saying that watching SA politics has become “edge-of-the-seat stuff”. Roll on 2024.
Read also:
- Helen Zille on Joburg chaos: Gayton “played” DA’s Moonshot partners, always defaults to supporting ANC
- Joburg’s collapse of anti-ANC Moonshot Pact – “dit loop kak”, but insider Cronje provides context, offers hope
- RW Johnson: Why ANC/EFF most likely post-2024 – and potential consequences, including provincial secession pressure
- RW Johnson – How CR’s myopia could leave SA with the worst of all post-2024 worlds.
