DA provincial leader Ivan Meyer has defended his comparison of the ANC of today to the apartheid-era National Party.
|||Cape Town - DA provincial leader Ivan Meyer has defended his comparison of the ANC of today to the apartheid-era National Party, but said this would not be part of the party’s election campaign.
He said he created a presentation and replaced the ANC’s black, green and gold on its logo with the old South African flag, after he compared the ANC to the apartheid regime during a sitting of the provincial legislature in November.
“I have discussed this at one party meeting this year in Cape Town but it is an internal document and will not be part of our election campaign,” he said.
The image has stirred up anger within the ANC and moved the national DA to distance itself from it.
This follows controversy over the party’s “Know Your DA” campaign which included a photograph of Nelson Mandela and Helen Suzman embracing, with the caption: “We played our part in opposing apartheid.”
DA leader Helen Zille added to the row when she said the ANC was not the only “or even the most important” opposition force against apartheid.
Defending his presentation, Meyer said on Monday he still felt that there were “danger signs” among the ANC government that was “symbolic” of the National Party.
“Police brutality is one of these signs,” he said.
In his presentation he compares the killing of 34 striking mineworkers in Marikana on August 16 to the police firing on demonstrators in Sharpeville on March 21, 1960, when 69 people died.
He mentioned arrogance of state officials and specially police as one example.
Meyer said he stood by his statements about the ANC but would not answer questions about his presentation alienating potential voters at the ballot box.
Meyer was elected unopposed as Western Cape DA leader at last year’s party provincial congress.
cobus.coetzee@inl.co.za
Cape Times