Steenhuisen admits De Lille blunders
DA CHIEF Whip John Steenhuisen has admitted that the party made mistakes in its handling of the Patricia de Lille matter.
Steenhuisen was fielding questions at a community meeting in the Bluff in Durban, where he was articulating the party’s position on a number of issues including the rising cost of living, lack of jobs, inadequate health care and access to good, quality education.
“It has been a learning curve for us. We have never faced this type of crisis on a scale we have before and we have made mistakes,” he said.
De Lille and the DA have been involved in open hostility for months leading to her ousting from the party. She accused the party of trying to oust her to frustrate efforts to bring about greater social equality in the city, saying the decision to kick her out was “a victory for the conservative people in the DA who don’t want to see transformation in the City”.
Asked about the erosion of public trust in the party following the bitter public spat with De Lille, Steenhuisen said the DA remained unapologetic for “showing South Africans that we hold our own members accountable”.
The party had accused De Lille of protecting maladministration, misconduct, dereliction of duty, lying to council, hurting the DA brand and ruining relations in the DA team. De Lille had continually asked for the allegations to be tested in open disciplinary proceedings.
Steenhuisen was on the campaign trail for the party which has ambitions to lower the ANC’s voter numbers to below 50% in KwaZulu-Natal at next year’s elections.
“I really do believe that, in the final analysis and looking back, we can look voters in the eye when going to their homes and asking them to vote for us because we hold our own members accountable,’’ he said.
KZN DA leader Zwakele Mncwango was reportedly the only person who had voted against De Lille’s expulsion.
The high court in Cape Town will make a ruling before the end of this month on whether a clause in the party constitution used to strip De Lille of her party membership was unlawful.