CAROL PATON: Why Helen Zille will not go without a final fight
It will be best for the DA if the Western Cape premier resigns, but her politics and personality will prevent it
While Helen Zille furiously pens her defence again and again, the rest of SA is watching her crash and burn in slow motion — some with glee and some with horror. Her fate will be decided in weeks. The DA’s federal legal commission will investigate her offensive tweets, formulate charges if necessary and convene a disciplinary panel that will come to a decision and recommend a sanction. But the party’s federal executive can vary the sanction, depending on political and other considerations. In the end, it will be a political decision. For the DA’s top leadership, those weeks will pass excruciatingly slowly. The writing is already on the wall and more damage is likely before this is done and dusted: Zille has to go. It is an ignominious end to a brilliant career. SA would be a different place without Zille, who has barged into townships in defiance of a far bigger, more powerful party aggressively defending its turf. She has championed the idea politics can and will realign as the ANC...
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