DA chairperson of the federal council, Helen Zille, questioned the ANC’s approach to the National Dialogue.
“You can’t instruct people to dialogue. Especially when the ANC is clearly planning a monologue.”
With these harsh words DA chair of the federal council Helen Zille questioned the ANC’s approach to the National Dialogue – an initiative by President Cyril Ramaphosa her party has vowed to boycott.
“A dialogue is entered into voluntarily by its participants,” said Zille as the battle lines are drawn in the government of national unity (GNU).
ALSO READ: Steenhuisen calls national dialogue a ‘band-aid on the ANC’s electoral wound’
Strained relations between DA and ANC
Relations between the ANC and DA have been frayed and have taken extra strain this past week. Former president Thabo Mbeki and DA leader John Steenhuisen exchanged open letters, with the Presidency reminding the latter of his “ministerial obligations”.
The first national convention to set the agenda for the National Dialogue is scheduled for mid- August.
The Presidency said Steenhuisen, as the minister of agriculture, was appointed to the committee, placing the DA’s public stance at odds with official duty.
Steenhuisen and the DA said they would not participate in the National Dialogue after President Cyril Ramaphosa ignored the party’s ultimatum over the removal of the DA’s Andrew Whitfield from his deputy minister role.
ALSO READ: A ‘mockery’ or ‘flimsy attack’? ANC and DA scrap over Tshwane city manager’s appointment
Insubordination
Spokesperson for the Presidency Vincent Magwenya reportedly said Steenhuisen’s lack of participation in the committee could draw Ramaphosa’s ire.
“It will be important for the sake of the DA’s continued participation in the GNU that Minister Steenhuisen is able to separate his ministerial obligations from his party positions,” Magwenya told the Sunday Times.
“His refusal to participate in the National Dialogue interministerial committee will be regarded by the president as insubordination,” Magwenya said. Steenhuisen fired back at Mbeki on Friday, after the former president called the DA’s refusal to participate in the national dialogue “misplaced and very strange indeed”.
The DA leader said Whitfield’s actions – taking an international trip without permission – were “far less egregious than the moral and ethical transgressions” of other ANC members of the Cabinet.
Steenhuisen reiterated the DA’s belief that the National Dialogue was an ANC campaign tool needed to halt the party’s electoral decline.
“We regard the proposed National Dialogue, dominated as it is by foundations linked to the ANC, as a political manoeuvre aimed at placing a Band-Aid on the ANC’s electoral wound,” Steenhuisen wrote.
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