To Helen Back

We catch up with the political powerhouse that is Helen Zille

- Sue Segar

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.