Democratic Alliance leader, Helen Zille has accused President Jacob Zuma of allowing teacher union Sadtu to hold the Eastern Cape education system to ransom in order to get their votes ahead of the ANC's elective conference in Mangaung in December.
Zille said her speech to the Eastern Cape's DA congress was less about hammering the ANC, and more about grappling with the province's serious decline.
But on education she was scathing.
She said President Zuma had chosen to back the SA Democratic Teachers Union, a union so undemocratic and callous that she can hardly pronounce the word 'democratic'.
Zille said while Basic Education Minister and ANC Womens League leader, Angie Motshekga had tried to rescue an education system she said had virtually collapsed, Zuma had failed to support her steps at resurrecting it.
The DA leader said Zuma knows that the Eastern Cape is still the ANC's biggest voting bloc and he cannot afford to alienate Sadtu.
She said the tragic truth was that the President was prepared to sacrifice the children of the province and condone criminal incompetence.
