Ramaphosa’s African peace mission ‘a fiasco’: Zille
Helen Zille has denied her criticism of the President’s visit to Ukraine and Russia is unpatriotic.
Over the weekend, Zille described the African peace mission to the two countries as a fiasco.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and other leaders from a few African countries held separate talks with presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin to find a peaceful resolution to the war there.
Zille, the DA Federal Council chairperson, was in Durban on Monday afternoon to visit Newlands East’s Ward 11 ahead of next week’s by-election there.
READ: African peace mission has given continent a voice, says analyst
She said her comments about the trip came from a place of concern.
"It is not unpatriotic to call out the fiasco that this trip has been - in fact, loyalty to South Africa requires that we call it as it is.
"We have seen that this trip has been a fiasco from the beginning, and to think that a deep-seated conflict over a sovereign territory and the ceasing of that territory by another country can be resolved by a pop in visit to President Zelenskyy and President Putin is just dreaming.
"Nobody takes that seriously, and then we see what it is and attempt to detract attention from the mess at home."
