Politics

Mayor of Cape Town fights back against dismissal

09 May, 2018

Patricia de Lille is taking her case against the Democratic Alliance to court.

Patricia de Lille, the mayor of Cape Town, who has been dismissed from her party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), and as mayor of Cape Town, is taking her case to court.

The DA has ousted her on the charge that she said in a public interview at the end of April that she was considering resigning from the party. But behind the dismissal are also accusations of cronyism and mismanagement during her time as mayor of Cape Town.

However de Lille claims that she is still mayor of the city and is asking the Cape Town high court for an interdict against the city manager and the Independent Electoral Commission to prevent them declaring a vacancy for the position of mayor and then filing papers for an election.

The DA has installed Ian Neilson, the executive deputy mayor, as acting mayor and has dissolved her governing committee.

The party in-fighting against de Lille, who led the resurgence of the DA as South Africa’s main opposition party against the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in the 2014 general elections, comes as South Africa prepares for new general elections next year for the presidency, the general assembly and provincial governments.

De Lille has been mayor of Cape Town since 2011 and has recently successfully led the city through the worst drought in its history.

Photos of de Lille hugging the country’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, to welcome him to the recent Cape Town jazz festival have not gone down well with the conservative elements of the DA nor have reports that she would be welcome to join the ANC in the future.

The emeritus archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu has said that she will be a loss to the city where she has been a unifying influence in a society that was still bearing the scars of its apartheid past.

De Lille has already made it clear that she will not make any decisions about her political future until she has cleared her name from accusations brought by the DA.