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Bonginkosi Madikizela.
Gallo Images / Report / Jaco Marais
- The federal legal commission of the district attorney determined that the accusation that one candidate for the leadership of the Western Cape faced another was false.
- The FLC admonished both parties for their role in the matter.
- This weekend’s provincial congress will take place as planned, Helen Zille said.
The federal legal commission of the district attorney (FLC) considered “totally false” the accusation that one of the candidates for the Western Cape leadership of the party hit another.
The provincial congress, scheduled for this weekend, will continue as planned, the president of the federal council, Helen Zille, announced on Friday.
The run-up to the provincial congress was clouded by an accusation that the current Western Cape DA and MEC provincial leader of Transport and Public Works, Bonginkosi Madikizela, ordered a coup against the provincial parliament speaker, Masizole Mnqasela.
Zille described this as “one of the most serious accusations ever made in the prosecution.”
“The federal legal commission found the accusation to be totally false,” Zille said in a statement.
Zille said the federal executive studied the FLC’s third report on the matter Thursday night and the presiding officers of Congress decided Friday morning to proceed with Congress as planned.
“The source of the false rumor was a man, known only as Zizi, [who] it was eventually tracked down by our federal legal commission and deposited in an affidavit, “Zille said.
“In it, Zizi claims that, on September 18, he observed a meeting taking place in a Cape Town restaurant and overheard snippets of a conversation, leading him to conclude that one of the candidates, Mr. Bonginkosi Madikizela, he could have been planning to harm the other candidate, Mr. Masizole Mnqasela.
“Zizi then informed Mr. Mnqasela accordingly, who reported the matter to the VIP Protection Unit, who initiated a further investigation. Mr. Madikizela learned of this accusation against him when Crime Intelligence reported its investigation to Prime Minister Alan Winde “.
After a full investigation, the FLC concluded that the “plot meeting” Zizi referred to could not have taken place.
READ | Western Cape DA Congress: Debate Denied on Alleged Assassination Plot Involving Two Pioneers
“The Zizi story, therefore, has no credibility.”
The restaurant where Zizi alleges the meeting took place has been closed since the inception of the lockdown and remains closed. It closed on September 18.
Madikizela has evidence that she was in a virtual Cabinet meeting for the entire time in question on September 18 and was not near the restaurant.
“The federal legal commission, after reverifying the details of the accusation with Zizi, concluded that the alleged meeting did not take place and that the accusation lacks any truth.”
According to Zille, Zizi’s motive for passing false information to Mnqasela remains unknown at this time.
“Zizi and Mnqasela are known to know each other well, calling each other ‘nephew’ and ‘uncle’ respectively. The police are investigating and the district attorney has made his information available to the police,” Zille said.
“The district attorney wants to find out what Zizi’s motives were for transmitting blatantly false information designed to harm the prosecutor and his congress.”
The FLC admonished Mnqasela for failing to adequately evaluate the information provided to him before transmitting it to the police and Winde. The FLC admonished Madikizela for openly denying the accusation before it was made public, thus spreading it more widely.
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