Should opposition parties treat Jacob Zuma with a certain degree of respect simply because he occupies the office of the presidency? Michael Trapido, Pierre de Vos and the DA’s own Athol Trollip seem to think so, and I agree. Politeness is one mark of a virtuous and civilised society, and while it is not always obvious where the line between legitimate criticism and illegitimate personal attack lies, everyone (including Helen Zille herself) now seems to agree that Zille crossed it when she passed judgement on Zuma’s sex-life.

However, if decorum in politics is a good thing, surely this applies both ways? If the DA should treat Jacob Zuma with some level of deference on account of his office, why should the ANC not accord Zille a similar sort of respect, in recognition of her status as the Premier of the Western Cape and her constitutional role as leader of the opposition? But the attacks on Zille by ANC-affiliated organisations like the ANCYL, MKMVA and COSAS have been so far outside of polite discourse, they beggar belief:

Umkhonto we Sizwe veterans on Wednesday refused to hand a memorandum to one of Helen Zille’s MECs, telling him he was her “boyfriend”.

Newly-appointed housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela was met by cries of “voetsek” (go away) when he came to the front steps of the provincial administration building in central Cape Town to accept the document.

“Your message is loud and clear,” MK Veterans Association chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe told the several hundred vets, most in camouflage outfits, who marched on Zille’s office.

“They have sent over one of their puppets. We are not going to hand over the memo to her boyfriend.”

He was referring to a claim by the ANC Youth League that Zille was sleeping with members of her all-male cabinet.

[...]

Addressing the protest earlier, Cosas national president Wesley Kgang, wearing a MKMVA t-shirt, told the marchers there was “a suspicion” that Zille was a lesbian, and that she was possibly not even South African, but from Holland.

Zille’s statement about Zuma, though harsh and intemperate, alluded to things that he himself had said in court. It may have been impolite to bring them up, but there is a very large difference between this and the accusation that Zille is a foreign lesbian racist who is sleeping with her entire male cabinet. Yet from media coverage of the dispute, one might get the idea that both parties were equally guilty of breaching etiquette. (This comic by Zapiro is a succinct example of this sort of false even-handedness.) They are not.