POINT OF ORDER
Zille holds up a little torch of redemption
THIS past week, I was asked to interview Western Cape premier Helen Zille at a public function: one of the many events she is using to promote her book Not Without a Fight. It was a pleasant evening at the old Troyeville Hotel, and Zille was, as always, perceptive, principled and slightly uncomfortably hard-edged. She reminds me a bit of a Catholic nun: devout, humane but slightly disconcertingly strict. Consequently, it came as something of a shock reading in her book how glowing and warm she was about President Jacob Zuma. The president is going through his most difficult period. His party is in disarray, his popularity is at rock bottom and former allies are calling for him to resign. And into this dark cavern, Zille arrives carrying a little torch of redemption. She relates how charmed she was by Zuma and how she admired aspects of his leadership skills. She tells how she was literally swept off her feet by Zuma, a proficient ballroom dancer, at a Cabinet lekgotla just after she...
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