It took one minute and 58 seconds for Helen Zille to read her apology of 212 words on Tuesday, reports HuffPostSA.

Sitting beside Mmusi Maimane at the DA’s media conference at the Holiday Inn Rosebank in Johannesburg, the two never once made eye contact.

Zille’s apology, regarding her tweets about colonialism, was apparently “the product of hours upon hours of argument and debate, crafted to Maimane’s satisfaction and only finalised late the previous night”:

[I]t took four days of shuttle diplomacy between the Marks Building in Cape Town, where Maimane has his parliamentary office, and Wale Street, where the provincial seat of government lies, to broker the truce which led to the chastening of Zille.

Concerted efforts to come to an acceptable agreement were relaunched midway through last week, after Zille was suspended by the party’s federal executive committee and she had made representations to the leadership, in which she described the process as “a sham” and her as the target of a “vindictive and personal campaign”.

The renewed efforts to convince Zille began on Friday – the day that Zille also appeared before the disciplinary panel for the first time:

Zille remained steadfast that her tweets were taken out of context and that it could be academically and analytically deconstructed. Colonialism was a detestable political system, yes, but it did have side-effects that have proven to be beneficial to the whole of society, was the message from the top of Adderley Street.

Maimane was even more adamant: it simply does not matter whether or not an academic analysis holds up to scrutiny. The emotional impact of a view like that, espoused by a leader of the DA, is hugely damaging and is interpreted as racist, was the rebuttal from the corner office on the second floor of the Marks Building.

However, everything changed on Sunday when the Sunday Times published a report “citing internal polling showing the DA’s support among black South Africans had almost halved in the two months since the impasse began”.

That just wouldn’t do and Zille, according to insiders, was shocked and distraught:

The raw data showing the impact her tweets and her defence of it had on the DA’s efforts to take advantage of the African National Congress’ internal crises opened the door to an emotive argument: the tweets had hurt people.

Thus, Zille agreed to deliver the apology. The first drafts were circulated for consideration that evening, and work on the text continued for more than 24 hours “until it was finalised just after 10PM on Monday night”.

Dismissing the academic argument, Zille finally “submitted herself to Maimane and dispelled any doubts about who the leader of the party is”.

Too little, too late? No, her time to move on has arrived.

[source:huffingtonpost]