The news first broke last night that Cape Town mayor and the leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), Helen Zille, had been arrested in Cape Town for gathering outside a Cape Town police station demanding the release of a person arrested for marching to the premise of an alleged drug dealer in Woodlands, Mitchells Plain.

The way i see it, Zille and a group of people were participating in a march against drug lords which the police then classified as being ‘illegal’. They then arrested one of the members participating in the march. The arrested person was then taken to a police station and a group of other members which included the DA leader went to the police station to ask why the person had been arrested and subsequently they also got arrested. They were then released on a warning and asked to appear at the magistrate’s court today.

At the time of writing this, no statement has been released yet by the ruling ANC party.

A few months ago something similar happend in Zimbabwe, where Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested. Then i asked myself, “could such a thing every happen in South Africa?” where the leader of an opposition political party gets arrested. Well we didn’t have to wait for long to find out as it has now happend. Let’s see what the fall out of this will be.