Helen Zille

Early years, education and family

Helen Zille was born in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Her mother was a volunteer with the Black Sash Advice Office. While her family lived in Rivonia, she was educated at Johannesburg's St Mary's School, Waverley. She studied at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree. Around 1969, she joined the Young Progressives, the youth movement of the liberal and anti-apartheid Progressive Party.

She married Professor Johann Maree in 1982, and they have two sons. She is a member of the Rondebosch United Church in Cape Town.

Political journalism

Zille began her career as a political correspondent for the Rand Daily Mail newspaper in 1974. During September 1977, Minister of Justice and the Police J.T. Kruger announced that anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko had died in prison as the result of an extended hunger strike. Zille and her editor Allister Sparks were convinced Kruger's story was a cover-up, and Zille obtained concrete proof of this after tracking down and interviewing doctors involved in the case.

Consequent to the publication of the story, headlined "No sign of hunger strike—Biko doctors", Minister Kruger immediately threatened to ban the paper, and Zille received death threats. Zille and Sparks were represented at the subsequent quasi-judicial Press Council by leading defence lawyer Sydney Kentridge. The two were found guilty of "tendentious reporting", and the paper was forced to issue a correction. Kentridge later helped confirm the accuracy of Zille's account when he represented the Biko family at the inquest into his death. That inquest found Biko's death had been the result of a serious head injury but failed to find any individual responsible.

Zille resigned from the Rand Daily Mail along with editor Allister Sparks, after the paper's owner, Anglo American, demanded that Sparks quiet the paper's equal rights rhetoric.

Anti-apartheid movement

Zille was heavily involved in the Black Sash movement during the 1980s. She served on the regional and national executives of the organisation, and was also vice-chair of the End Conscription Campaign in the Western Cape. During this time, she was arrested for being in a "group area" without a permit, and received a suspended prison sentence. Zille and her husband later offered their home as a safe house for political activists during the 1986 State of Emergency, and she was temporarily forced into hiding with their two-year-old son.

Zille was also actively involved in the South Africa Beyond Apartheid Project and the Cape Town Peace Committee. She later gathered evidence for the Goldstone Commission which investigated attempts to destabilise the Western Cape before the elections in 1994.

Education policy work

Zille formed a public policy consultancy in 1989, and in 1993 she was offered the position of Director of Development and Public Affairs at the University of Cape Town. During this time Zille also chaired the governing body of Grove Primary School, and in 1996 led a successful challenge against government policy limiting governing bodies' powers to appoint staff.

Zille was then invited by the Democratic Party (now the Democratic Alliance) to write a draft policy for Education in the Western Cape. In 1999 she became a Member of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature, and was appointed MEC for Education.

In 2004, Zille became a Member of Parliament with the DA. Within the DA, she rose to the level of deputy federal chairperson and served as national party spokesperson and spokesperson for education.

2006 municipal elections and aftermath

In the 2006 municipal elections, the DA became the single largest party in Cape Town with 42% of the vote, ahead of the African National Congress (ANC). Zille was elected mayor by 106 votes to 103 on 15 March 2006, after the DA obtained the support of several smaller parties.

Subsequently, Zille's multi-party government decided to revoke the appointment of Cape Town City Manager Wallace Mgoqi, whose term of appointment had been extended by the outgoing ANC executive mayor, Nomaindia Mfeketo. Zille's decision was upheld by the High Court, which ruled that the extension of Mgoqi's appointment by the previous mayor had been unlawful.

Zille has faced considerable opposition and confrontation from the ANC. In September 2006, the provincial ANC MEC Richard Dyantyi, announced that he planned to replace the city's mayoral system with an executive committee. The move would have resulted in reduced mayoral power, and the governing party would not itself have been able to assign the ten seats on the committee, which would instead have been allocated on a proportional representation basis. Dyanti and Zille agreed to retain the current mayoral system if the ANC were provided with two additional sub-committees in areas of the city controlled by the ANC. The matter was thus resolved.

Issues

Zille's commitments as mayor included Cape Town's role as a designated host city for the 2010 World Cup, as well as the construction and financing of the Cape Town Stadium, which hosted 8 FIFA World Cup football matches in 2010.

A particular concern of Zille's was the problem of drug abuse in Cape Town, especially crystal methamphetamine (tik) abuse. She called for the promotion of drug rehabilitation centres and further funding from the government to battle drug abuse, and met with local communities to discuss the issue.

Zille objected to plans to incorporate the metro police into the broader police service, arguing that such a move would remove considerable power from local government and vest more control in the hands of the National Police Commissioner at the time, Jackie Selebi, who was later convicted of corruption.

Housing and service delivery

Although provincial rather than local government is tasked with housing delivery, Zille claimed that her municipality's efforts to reform housing lists and improve verification processes also allowed housing delivery to be increased from 3000 units per annum under the ANC, to 7000 units per annum between 2006 and 2008 under her administration as mayor.

In an article titled "The ANC is pro-poverty not pro-poor" published shortly before the 2009 general election, Zille pointed out that no budget allocation existed for upgrading informal settlements under the ANC administration, whereas in 2007 her own administration had set a dedicated budget for provision of water, electricity and sanitation.

Election

On 15 March 2007, Zille declared herself a candidate to succeed outgoing leader of the DA, Tony Leon. A favourite from the start, with backing from the Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, the Northern Cape, the Free State and even the Eastern Cape (regarded during much of the build-up as the stronghold of main rival Athol Trollip), she was elected as the new leader by a large majority on 6 May 2007. She indicated that she would lead the party from outside Parliament, while continuing in her position as executive mayor of Cape Town.

Issues

When she became leader of the DA, Zille challenged the majority government on a number of issues.

Crime

Of particular concern to Zille was the government's response to alarming crime statistics released in July 2007. She has accused the national government of rewarding criminals by placing individuals convicted of serious crimes high up on their national parliamentary lists. Zille has said that the DA would reinstate child protection units, the South African Narcotics Bureau and the Scorpions unit, all of which have been disbanded.

In August 2008, Zille announced proposals to boost the size of the police force to 250 000, employ an additional 30 000 detectives, improve detention programmes and use of information technology, and radically overhaul the justice system. She also said the party's comprehensive new crime plan would include provisions for a Victims of Crime Fund.

Health

Zille warned against the controversial National Health Amendment Bill, legislation allowing greater state intervention in private health care. She warned that the state will destroy the system, that is rated as the fifth best of its kind in the world. She outlined the possibility that the Bill could drive away thousands of skilled medical professionals. Together with her political party, she proposed an alternative health plan, for the privatisation of state healthcare. The National Health Amendment Act became law in 2013, and provides for the establishment of a new Office of Health Standards Compliance.

Judicial independence

As DA leader, Zille has also frequently questioned judicial independence in South Africa, in light of the alleged behaviour of the Cape judge president John Hlophe in trying to influence the Constitutional Court judges to rule in favour of ANC president Jacob Zuma. She also cited racism directed towards those in the judiciary, and has criticised the perceived double standards vocally.

Zimbabwe

Zille publicly denounced the Zimbabwean regime, calling for former-President Thabo Mbeki to abandon his "quiet diplomacy" policy and take a tougher stance towards the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe. She has called for the South African president to publicly acknowledge that the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe is illegal and illegitimate; to sever all formal diplomatic ties with Zimbabwe and withdraw all diplomatic representatives; to impose smart sanctions on the Zanu-PF elite, including travel bans to South Africa and the freezing of all South African assets linked to Mugabe and Zanu-PF; and to lobby for the suspension of Zimbabwe from the United Nations, the African Union and the South African Development Community.

Political debate

In June 2008, she challenged the president of the ANC and the 2009 presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma to a public debate on ten key issues such as the arms deal, disbanding of the Scorpions, the situation in Zimbabwe, HIV/Aids and labour legislation. Zuma declined to participate.

Campaign against drug and alcohol abuse

Eight members of a group called the People's Anti-Drug and Liquor Action Committee (PADLAC) were arrested in September 2007 outside the Mitchell's Plain police station. Zille was then arrested when she visited the police station to investigate. The group had been distributing pamphlets in the campaign against the abuse of alcohol and drugs in Cape Town. Police alleged that she supported vigilante groups opposed to drug abuse. She appeared in the Mitchell's Plain Magistrates Court later that week for contravening the Regulation of Gatherings Act. Zille was expected to sue the Minister of Police for wrongful arrest. Zille subsequently appeared briefly before the Mitchell's Plain Magistrates Court together with a group of ten persons who had been arrested with her.

On 30 September 2007 it was reported that senior intelligence sources, who were apparently unhappy with the ANC's plans to subvert state institutions to do ANC bidding, had leaked information to Zille that operatives with weapons were infiltrating PADLAC with the ultimate objective of bringing down the leader of the opposition. In October 2007, Zille was acquitted of all charges brought before the Mitchell's Plain Magistrates Court on the grounds that the prosecution's case against her and nine other defendants did not stand a chance of succeeding. Zille reiterated her intention to sue the South African Police Service (SAPS) branch in the Western Cape for wrongful arrest.

In March 2008, Helen Zille took her anti-drugs campaign to Johannesburg, leading a protest march. Marchers wore DA T-shirts, bearing the message No to drugs and save our children.

It is not clear that Zille's activities have had any particular impact on problems of crime and substance abuse in the Western Cape. The latest crime statistics suggest that the Western Cape is responsible for 34% of drug-related crime in South Africa.

United Nations

In April 2008, Zille was asked to address the United Nations in New York City on population and development, offering her experience and lessons as mayor of Cape Town.

World Mayor award

Zille was nominated as one of 820 world mayors and was winner of the 2008 World Mayor Award in October 2008.

There was controversy when the ruling ANC used its majority in the National Assembly to block (without notice) a motion by the DA acknowledging Zille's achievement in winning the 2008 World Mayor award.

Resignation as Party Leader

In April 2015, Zille announced that she would not be standing for re-election as party leader.

2009 election

The 2009 general elections presented Zille with her first major electoral contest as leader of the DA. She was selected as candidate for Premier of the Western Cape, and her party succeeded in winning a 51.23 percent of the province's vote. Zille was installed as Premier, and replaced as mayor by Dan Plato. Nationally, the DA gained significant ground as official opposition, winning 16.66 percent of the vote, and increasing its tally of seats in both houses of Parliament to 77.

Row with Jacob Zuma

In May 2009, shortly after being elected Premier, Zille wrote a letter to the Cape Argus newspaper that was accidentally copied by her spokesperson to the Sowetan newspaper. Responding to criticism from gender lobby groups and the ANC over her all-male provincial cabinet, Zille stated in the letter that the ANC had never even been led by a woman, and that its leaders set bad examples on gender issues. She cited South African President Jacob Zuma's "deeply sexist views", accused him of being a "womaniser", and condemned him for putting "all his wives at risk of contracting HIV" by having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman. Zuma, a polygamist, admitted in his rape trial that he had known that the woman with whom he had, had sex was HIV positive.

Zille's condemnation of Zuma's behaviour was then used by the Sowetan as the basis of a front page story titled "Zuma an AIDS risk". The paper stated that Zille had "launched an extraordinary new attack" on Zuma. This heralded a wave of attacks on Zille from both the ANC and a number of its alliance partners. The ANC Youth League claimed Zille was racist, and that her all-male cabinet consisted of "boyfriends and concubines so that she can continue to sleep around with them". The claim, made without substantiation, drew the ire of the DA, who consulted with their lawyers over a possible defamation suit. The Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association restated the Youth League's sex claims, and warned it would launch "a political programme aimed at rendering the Western Cape ungovernable". The ANC also criticised Zille, but distanced itself from the remarks of its Youth League, stating that they were "deeply embarrassing". In response, Zille claimed that the whole row exemplified South Africa's warped approach to gender issues.

Land dispute

In May 2009, Zille accused the ANC of asset stripping. She related to the transfer of 1 000 hectares of provincial land in the Western Cape to a national body. The transfer was signed off by the former premier Lynne Brown on 21 April 2009, the day before the national elections. Zille alleged that the deal was done "secretly, in bad faith and with an ulterior motive". The ANC responded by claiming that the land deal had been publicly tabled in Parliament several times over the years and there was nothing sinister about it. Zille later said that she would call for a review and rescinding of the agreement and would lodge a dispute at an intergovernmental relations meeting, but the matter was resolved in January 2010, when the ANC's Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, agreed to return the land to the province before the matter could be taken to court.

2014 elections and re-election

Ahead of the 2014 elections, in 2013, Thembu King Dalindyebo joined the DA as an ordinary member while he was appealing convictions for various crimes, which was seen by some as a cynical ploy by the DA to court voters. When confronted about the membership, Zille noted that no other ordinary members were subject to tests or “due diligence” investigations, but also that the DA's constitution required Dalindyebo's membership to be terminated if his appeals failed. In October 2015, Dalindyebo's convictions were upheld, and his membership of the DA was terminated.

Following the 2014 general elections, the DA won 59.38% of the vote and 26 seats in the Western Cape provincial legislature, an increase of 3.25%. Under her leadership, the party also won 89 seats in the National Assembly and 22.23% of the National vote. Zille was sworn into a second term on 26 May with 27 votes out of 42, her opponent being Marius Fransman of the ANC.

Criminalisation of deliberately spreading HIV with multiple partners

While addressing a wellness summit hosted by the Western Cape Health department, Zille had called for irresponsible men who knew they were HIV positive, yet refused to use condoms and had multiple sexual partners, to be charged with attempted murder, and for a shift in focus from the treatment of preventable diseases to unpreventable diseases. Some AIDS activists warned against such a move and called Zille's remarks "careless and misleading." Among those who criticized Zille's position were the Constitutional Law scholar Pierre de Vos. and prominent AIDS activist and director of Section 27, Mark Heywood.

'Refugees' from Eastern Cape

In 2012 Zille was embroiled in controversy after she tweeted: “While E Cape education collapsed, WC built 30 schools – 22 new, 8 replacement mainly 4 E Cape edu refugees. 26 MORE new schools coming.”

Her statement followed on from a protest in Grabouw about overcrowding at a local school. The ANC called Zille's reference to "refugees", with regard to Eastern Cape pupils who flocked to the Western Cape for a better education, "inhumane".

Zille later apologized and said she was “very, very sorry about the impact of those words”. She was “sorry because it was never meant in that context at all, and it was never said in that way at all. She said “What I was trying to show up was what (Basic) Education Minister Angie Motshekga calls a ‘horror story’ of education in much of the Eastern Cape”.

Failed Merger with Agang

As DA Party Leader, Zille presided over a failed attempt to merge with opposition party Agang, then led by Mamphela Ramphele. After announcing the merger, and Zille famously kissing Ramphele at the news conference, the merger fell apart within days after it was opposed by Agang members and also by senior figures within the DA. There were suggestions in the media, admitted in part by Zille, that a foreign donor to the DA had encouraged the merger.

Colonialism controversy arising from a trip to Singapore and Japan

In March 2017, after a trip to Singapore and Japan which cost R600 000 for 5 people, Zille commented on Twitter that the legacy of colonialism was not all bad because it had left a legacy of infrastructure and institutions, which South Africa could build upon. The consequent outrage led to internal disciplinary hearings. Zille is also being investigated for her comments about the legacy of colonialism by the Human Rights Commission for "a potential violation of human dignity".

Criticism and disciplinary hearing

Following accusations that she was defending colonialism, Zille noted that her views had been misconstrued, but also apologised "unreservedly for a tweet that may have come across as a defence of colonialism. It was not."

Among those who disagreed with her were other DA members, such as Mbali Ntuli, who stated that colonialism was "only" negative, and who herself faces a disciplinary hearing in 2017 for "liking" in December 2016 a Facebook comment that characterised Zille as racist; Phumzile van Damme, who stated that there was not "a single aspect of [colonialism] that can be said to be positive or beneficial to Africans"; and party leader Mmusi Maimane, who stated "Colonialism‚ like Apartheid‚ was a system of oppression and subjugation. It can never be justified," but also said in the aftermath that Zille was not a racist and that she had "consistently fought oppression". DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia defended Zille as well-intentioned. He agreed with her that colonialism was not solely negative, and noted that many prominent intellectuals, including Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, Godfrey Mwakikagile and Manmohan Singh, have expressed similar sentiments.

Kwame Nkrumah, who led the Gold Coast, renamed Ghana, to become the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to win independence, expressed similar sentiments in his speech on the Motion for Ghana's Independence to the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly on 10 July 1953:

"The strands of history have brought our two countries together. We have provided much material benefit to the British people, and they in turn have taught us many good things. We want to continue to learn from them the best they can give us and we hope that they will find in us qualities worthy of emulation."

Nkrumah was an anti-colonialist of immense stature and was never accused of being an apologist for colonial rule. He was never subjected to vitriolic condemnation the way Helen Zille was when she articulated the same position he did; nor was Nelson Mandela who expressed the same view. Chinua Achebe and other African scholars, Ali Mazrui and Godfrey Mwakikagile, expressed similar views without incurring the wrath of other Africans the way Helen Zille did.

Moeletsi Mbeki, the younger brother of former South African President Thabo Mbeki and head of the South African Institute of International Affairs, made similar remarks without causing a political firestorm when he said life for Africans was better during colonial times in terms of how governments discharged their responsibilities. According to a BBC report,"Africa 'better in colonial times'", 22 September 2004:

"The average African is worse off now than during the colonial era, the brother of South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has said. Moeletsi Mbeki accused African elites of stealing money and keeping it abroad, while colonial rulers planted crops and built roads and cities. 'This is one of the depressing features of Africa,' he said....

'The average African is poorer than during the age of colonialism. In the 1960s African elites/rulers, instead of focusing on development, took surplus for their own enormous entourages of civil servants without ploughing anything back into the country,' he said.

Moeletsi Mbeki was addressing a meeting of the South African Institute of International Affairs, which he heads." - ("Africa 'better in colonial times'", BBC, 22 September 2004).

Yet his remarks did not draw public condemnation as an endorsement of colonial rule the way Zille's comments did.

The ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters both demanded that Zille be removed from her position as Western Cape Premier.

As a result of her online comments, Zille was referred to the DA's federal legal commission for a disciplinary hearing on charges of bringing the party into disrepute and damaging the party. Following this news, Zille further defended herself by noting that Nelson Mandela had held the same opinion about colonialism. Her continued defence of her comments exacerbated internal friction in the Democratic Alliance between her and her detractors, and was seen to undermine the party leader, Maimane. Maimane stated that the disciplinary charges against Zille were not limited to Twitter, and included "a series of comments [...] that have exacerbated and amplified the original tweet”. Some of her subsequent writings, in which she defended her views, have increasingly strained her relationship with Maimane.

Costs

In April 2017, Zille faced further criticism about the visit to Singapore, which was characterised as extravagant at a price of R1 million. According to Zille's spokesperson, R636,000 was travel expenses, and another R500,000 was for "direct business engagements". Also according to the spokesperson, the trip, which included a visit to Japan, was intended to strengthen Asian investment in halaal food, and to encourage tourism from that region. Zille defended herself by stating that she had gone without an assistant in order to limit the expense of the trip.

Published works