ANALYSIS
In the Eastern Cape, the Democratic Alliance is in bed with a despot convicted of homicide, attempted murder, kidnapping, arson and a range of other heinous crimes. Mandy de Waal asks whether the opposition is wise to hug a tyrant close to its breast, in the hope of defeating the ANC.
“It is a huge story that the King of the AbaTembu (Mandela's Lineage) rejects the ANC and tells people to consider other parties. He is DA!” Premier Helen Zille proclaimed on Twitter on 13 April, underscoring her royal love affair with the troubled Buyelekhaya Zwelinbanzi Dalindyebo a Sabata, King of the abaThembu.
There is a dispute about whether or not the man’s a royal, but the leader of the opposition is right in stating that the DA’s embrace of Dalindyebo is a big story. Like her short-lived romance with Mamphela Ramphele, Zille’s courtship of Dalindyebo is a troubled affair. Unlike Ramphele, Dalindyebo’s narrative is besmirched with murder, assault, kidnapping, arson, regular plumes of marijuana smoke and more.
The King’s dark past
Dalindyebo’s shame is spelled out in his sentencing by the Eastern Cape High Court in December 2009. Case No. 267/2004 between the State and Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo shows that he was sentenced for crimes that included culpable homicide in respect of the death of Saziso Wofa, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, kidnapping, multiple counts of arson, defeating the ends of justice unlawfully and intentionally trying to conceal the death of Wofa.
The court document describes how Dalindyebo instructed Saziso Wofa’s father not to report his son’s death to the SAPS, and told Wofa Snr to conceal the true cause of his son’s death from mortuary authorities. The crimes were committed at Dalindyebo’s farm, Tyalara near Mthatha in the Eastern Cape over a period of eight months from June 1995 to January 1996.
Yet Zille gushed about Dalindyebo’s speech in what the Herald described as the “DA’s biggest rally ever in the Transkei.”
When a sceptical tweeter wrote that the king is “nuts.” Zille responded, “Not if you listened to his speech today, it was lucid, intelligent and democratic.”
But let’s try appreciate why the DA is cozying up to Dalindyebo, by examining the the role that traditional leaders play in SA politics and how important they’ve become in securing the rural vote.
In densely populated areas like Soweto or Khayelitsha the mobilisation of party politics is easier than than in remote rural areas for obvious reasons. The density itself, access to communications infrastructure, and party political networks (particularly those set up by the ANC), make mobilising the electorate simpler.
In rural areas geography and access create their own challenges. So royals, chiefs and headmen act as vital access points through which the ANC influences communities at risk of not voting, spoiling their votes, or voting for another party come 7 May.
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To date Dalindyebo has yet to serve his sentence. It has been some 18 years since Saziso Wofa died, but it appears increasingly unlikely that justice will be served in the case against the King. Dalindyebo appealed his sentence, and this appeal has been dragged out, with the King citing a lack of cash, and infighting between his lawyer and advocate. Media reports last year indicated that critical court documents have disappeared. There is no Google record of the DA ever taking issue with any of the actions the court found Dalindyebo guilty of.
The DA’s prize for trading in its liberal values and courting a despot like Dalindyebo? The hope that maybe it will gain a marginally bigger foothold in an ANC stronghold that to date has eluded it.
The moral of this story? There’s a quote by Billy Connolly that’s often attributed to Evita Bezuidenhout that goes: “Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of political intercourse.” The big story here is that Zille and the DA have no qualms receiving gifts and getting in bed with one terrible tyrant in the hope of defeating another.
