Johannesburg – AbaThembu king Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo’s decision to join the DA is unfortunate, the SACP said on Tuesday.

“[It] once more proves that no matter how good and heroic our parents can be, it does not follow that children will be the same,” the Eastern Cape SA Communist Party said in a statement.

It said Dalindyebo’s decision had to be understood in the context of his appeal of a 15-year jail term on various charges, including attempted murder.

“The marriage between the DA and the king of AbaThembu is actually a marriage of desperate parties; the king desperate to escape a jail term and the DA desperate to gain black votes… .”

Democratic Alliance Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip announced on Monday that Dalindyebo had joined the party.

“After a long meeting to discuss the DA’s values and the DA’s constitution, I can confirm that AbaThembu king Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo has joined the DA.”

Trollip said Dalindyebo believed the DA’s “brand of clean government and delivery” was needed in the province.

Last month Dalindyebo made headlines when he reportedly described the ANC and President Jacob Zuma as “corrupt hooligans”. He made the remarks in Qunu, in the Eastern Cape, at a prayer service for ailing former president Nelson Mandela.

Dalindyebo reportedly said the ANC had distorted the anti-apartheid icon’s legacy and behaved arrogantly. He said he would stop smoking dagga the day Zuma stopped being corrupt.

Uncouth tendencies

Dalindyebo previously said he would join the DA as a birthday gift to Mandela. Mandela, who remains in a critical but stable condition in a Pretoria hospital, turns 95 on Thursday.

The Gauteng African National Congress Youth League said on Tuesday that Dalindyebo’s attack on Zuma was “distasteful”.

“While we would not want to degenerate to his level, it is only appropriate that we warn him to refrain from his uncouth tendencies,” it said.

“The ANC and society does not need the likes of him in its ranks.”

The Eastern Cape ANC said on Monday the party was better off without him.

“With his majesty out of the ANC, we will have less worry as we will not have to baby-sit a king with reckless conduct. Maybe in the DA he has found people of the same ilk as him.”

– SAPA