We catch up with the political powerhouse that is Helen Zille
WHEN WE MEET, A WEEK AFTER the May elections, Helen Zille is in the throes of vacating the Western Cape premier's residence after ten years at the helm of the only province in South Africa not governed by the ANC. Wrapped in her dressing gown, she has flu and is exhausted. “You can see I’m a bit terse. I am sick. There is no fuse left.” She waves our photographer away, saying “there will be no photos today”.
When finally seated in the reception room at Leeuwenhof, Zille has some words of advice for incoming premier Alan Winde: “Manufactured outrage will accompany everything he says and does. When they can’t get to him, they will try his children and his family. He must be steeled for that. He will get tough. Very, very tough,” she says, adding: “This is not a glamorous job. It’s a bloody difficult one. Perseverance and true grit are what will see him through.
“You start with an account full of credits, and you use up those credits every day. You have to just keep on keeping on. That’s the one piece of advice I have for him.
“Secondly, he must develop really good judgment about who to listen to. Everyone will be telling him what to do and he must ignore 99 percent of them. Pick your advisers very carefully.”
Her abrupt dismissal of our photographer sadly dissolves our plan to get an exclusive shot with her and her adored grandchild Mila, the daughter of Zille’s son Paul and her daughter-in-law Gretl. She relents later and provides us with a picture of her own.)
Right then she’s waiting for a call to see if she needs to pick Mila up from crèche.
“Mila is a strong little girl, an absolute sweetheart… We read lots of books and watch Pepper Pig and we dance, but she doesn’t like me to dance,” she confides.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 2019 من Noseweek.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 2019 من Noseweek.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Lennie The Liquidator Faces R500,000 Defamation Suit
After losing his cool when his fees were questioned
Panel Beater De Luxe
Danmar Autobody and its erstwhile directors get a serious panel beating in court papers. Corruption and theft are said to have destroyed the firm chaired by Nelson Mandela’s eldest daughter, leaving 200 workers destitute and threatening to kill.
Meet Covid Diarist Ronald Wohlman
Ronald Wohlman – EX SOUTH African copywriter, author, and actor – never dreamt that his lockdown diaries, written on Facebook and followed by people all over the world – would become his “life’s work”.
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Flogging A (Battery-Driven) Dead Horse
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Everybody Drinks Corona
I am hesitant to go Into the pub today. Not because it’s illegal, but there is a crème colored 1985 Mercedes 300D parked behind the pine tree. This means the devil is inside; that’s what we call Dr. De Villiers. You don’t know whether you will encounter the good doctor with the charming bedside manner or the violent, bipolar bully. The problem is, most of the time, you can never be sure which it is, so it’s best to always keep a social distance.
Never Take A Hypochondriac To A Pandemic
From Ronald Wohlman’s New York Corona Diary
The money train
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‘He's no pharmaceutical genius, he's a vulture'
Pharma con seeks prison release to ‘help find Covid cure’
Bush school – A memoir
OUR SCHOOL WAS IN THE MIDDLE of the bush, ten miles from the nearest town in the harsh beauty of the Zimbabwean highveld. It started life in World War II as No 26 EFTS Guinea Fowl, a Royal Air Force elementary flying training school and I arrived there in 1954, just seven years after it became an all-white co-ed state boarding school.
