‘The alternative to being rescued is dying’: Helen Zille defends DA ‘doomsday’ burning flag advert

The DA leadership has defended its controversial election advert which depicts a burning South African flag, saying the party was trying to convey a message about what would happen if voters do not support it in the upcoming elections.

“If a person is drowning you hope to rescue them, if someone has fallen in a very big dark pit you try to rescue them. The alternative to being rescued is dying, and that is the message we are trying to get across to South Africa,” DA federal chairperson Helen Zille said when defending the advert.

She said the burning of the flag was a figurative illustration of what the DA believes would be “doomsday” should the ANC, EFF and MK Party (MKP) form a coalition government after this month's provincial and national elections.

“It is not five minutes to midnight in South Africa, it is seven past midnight and the clock is ticking. The longer South Africans wait to vote for the DA, the harder it is going to be to rescue the country and apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to it,” she said. 

The party received backlash on social media after the election video was released on Sunday. The video has attracted more than 2-million views on X.

Former public protector Thuli Madonsela said the party should have used other metaphoric symbols instead of burning a “symbol of triumph against apartheid”.

“Our flag symbolises our hopes and triumph over the wicked apartheid state. We protect its versions wherever we are. Some of us love and revere this flag,” she said.

“I fully understand the intention but there could have been other metaphoric symbols to communicate the message. The burning of our flag is ill advised. Seems to show disrespect and disloyalty to the flag, which to many of us is more than a flag but a symbol of triumph against apartheid.”

Speaking at the launch of the advert in Bruma, Johannesburg DA leader John Steenhuisen said the burning of the flag, as seen in the advert, was a warning to South Africans.

“What you will see in this advertisement is a symbolic representation of the future that awaits South Africa if people do not vote for the DA. It is a warning of what this country’s future will look like under a doomsday coalition between the ANC, the EFF, and perhaps also MKP and mercenary small parties like the Patriotic Alliance,” he said. 

Advocate Sechaba Zaza Mamoepa said: “Burning the South African flag or depicting an image of our country's flag [burning] is so unpatriotic. We understand you do not love the ANC, but burning our national flag means you don't even love South Africa and its people. Why should the people of South Africa vote for a party that doesn't love and honour it?”

Johannesburg DA councillor Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku defended the party: “Symbolic to the state our country is in at the moment, our country is burning. I would have expected more outrage about children dying in pit toilets, youth dying due to gang violence, inadequate police and corruption that steals from the poor. Our country is burning.”

Here are other reactions from social media:

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