The DA may be stoked with the results as they roll in thus far (HERE), but they have disowned a tweet sent out by Western Cape premier Helen Zille.

The controversial tweet was posted just hours after election polls closed, and centred on Zille’s apparent anger towards articles in the Cape Argus written by students ‘affiliated to the #FeesMustFall movement’.

Here’s the tweet that started the backlash:

Oh dear. She wasn’t backing down either, as the thread below the tweet indicates:

Here’s IOL with more:

The group of students wrote about the current democratic climate and questioned whether they should vote or not.

…the students referred to UCT as their “reluctant home” and spoke of their intersectionality of identities…

The students who were part of the project reacted immediately, and a few hours later “misery” was trending on the social network.

Even the DA themselves were taken aback:

National spokeswoman Phumzile van Damme said: “I’ll have to speak to her about what she meant in her tweets, but the insinuation out there is that she’s saying students who complain about universities should have their funding withdrawn. As a basic principle, we do not believe people should be punished for expressing their unhappiness or protesting. It’s a constitutional right – you’re entitled to do that. And we certainly do not support the withdrawal of funding from students. We need as many young people in university, studying, as possible. And those specifically who qualify for university must be in university, we absolutely do not support the withdrawal of funding.”

Twitter, no place for the faint-hearted.

[source:iol]