Feudal authoritarianism had nothing to do with the Khayelitsha toilets saga, the African National Congress (ANC) said on Tuesday.

What was at stake was rather Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille's "flagrant disregard" of her duty to serve all the people of the Western Cape, ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said in a statement.

He was responding to Zille's latest online newsletter, in which she said that parts of the country were in thrall to a "feudal authoritarianism".

She said that millions of South Africans feared expressing their views in the face of the "thugocrats" who dominated the communities where they lived.

As an example of this, she cited the ANC Youth League's conduct in the controversy over the toilets.

Mthembu claimed that the stand of Zille, who is also Western Cape Premier, and Cape Town mayor Dan Plato on the toilets was racially motivated.

"Zille and Plato have grossly contravened the Constitution, which protects human rights," he said.

"It is their flagrant disregard of their noble duty to serve the people of the Western Cape as a whole which is at stake in Khayelitsha and not what Zille has referred to as 'a South Africa in the grip of feudal authoritarianism'.

He said that the ANC called on Zille and Plato to get off their high horses and deal with the responsibility entrusted to them in terms of the Constitution.

Controversy erupted over about 50 unenclosed toilets earlier this year.

When Plato's council put up tin enclosures, youth league members tore them down, demanding concrete ones.