Zille was prepared to step down for Manuel

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille was prepared to stand down last year in favour of Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel if he had defected to the opposition party according to a report.

But Manuel failed to react to the Democratic Alliance's advances to him, according to a WikiLeaks cable Media24 reported.

Zille spoke to Media24 Investigations on Sunday after being told about a conversation between the DA's parliamentary leader Athol Trollip and US Ambassador to South Africa, Donald Gips, which was recorded in the confidential cable sent to the United States government.

The cable forms part of the 250,000 US diplomatic cables leaked to whistleblower website WikiLeaks last year.

Media24 Investigations has independently obtained an encrypted, leaked file containing all the diplomatic cables, thousands of which concern South Africa and southern Africa and which have not emerged before.

In one of them, dated February last year, Trollip was reflected telling Gips that he believed "Manuel, who is the best mind in the ANC, is not happy in the party and noted that the current leader of the DA, Helen Zille, would give Manuel the DA party leadership if Manuel were to jump ship".

On Friday, Trollip said his reference to Manuel was a "metaphorical example". He denied there were direct discussions between DA leaders and Manuel.

Dumisa Jela, head of Manuel's office, said: "The minister has no comment".