LETTER: Like it or not, Helen Zille, race matters
It is clear that the proportion of black voters the DA is attracting remains dismally low
Helen Zille complains that Carol Paton patronised blacks in her column, which analysed why the DA is losing support among the black electorate (“SA will learn that nonracialism is indispensable to a successful country, (https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/letters/2021-03-10-letter-sa-will-learn-that-nonracialism-is-indispensable-to-a-successful-country/)” March 10).
Zille misquotes Paton by stating that she asserted the race of the leader was “the overriding quality attracting black SA voters”. This is ironic, as she forgets that in her own autobiography, Not without a Fight, she wrote that she backed Lindiwe Mazibuko’s standing for the parliamentary leadership of the DA against Athol Trollip in 2011 despite the fact that she felt Mazibuko was too inexperienced, because she feared the political fallout if she was seen to be backing an older white male against a young black woman. The election to the party leadership of Mmusi Maimane was clearly driven by a similar sentim...
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