DA faces battle in Beaufort West as mayor quits
THE resignation of Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille as DA Western Cape leader appears to have rattled some sections of the party and it now faces “a serious risk” of losing control of the Beaufort West municipality.
The DA faces a by-election in Ward 7 of the Karoo town after the resignation of mayor Djorge Malooi on Monday.
Malooi’s departure was followed by the resignation of De Lille loyalist, former Western Cape legislature DA caucus chairman Rodney Lentit.
Malooi and Lentit cited personal reasons for quitting as DA public representatives. Malooi said he was moving to Gauteng to join his wife who had a new job, while Lentit said he had been offered a business opportunity in the textile industry.
But sources in the DA said the two were among “Afrikaans-speaking coloured leaders” who felt marginalised by the “white, liberal English” group in the Western Cape’s governing party.
Newly elected interim leader Bonginkosi Madikizela will face his first leadership test in the next few weeks when the DA fights the byelection to retain control of Beaufort West.
In Beaufort West’s Ward 7, the DA won 46% of the votes, the ANC 35% and the Karoo Democratic Force 15% in last year’s municipal election.
The town is currently governed by a coalition of the DA and the KDF. The DA and the ANC hold six seats each while the KDF has one seat in the 13-member council.
The Independent Electoral Commission has yet to announce the by-election date.
Madikizela said he was worried that the DA could be toppled from power in the town, a popular stopover between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
“As a leader of the party in the province I am worried because any resignation of a ward councillor poses a serious risk in the stability of a municipality, especially in the case of Beaufort West,” said Madikizela.
“That’s why we’re going to work very hard to retain that ward so we continue to clean up the mess in that municipality.
“Immediately after the resignation I did send my colleagues there to assess the situation.”
Madikizela said it was not true that Malooi and Lentit had resigned in protest against his ascendancy, pointing out that they remained members of the DA.
He also said suggestions that “Afrikaans-speaking coloured leaders” were being marginalised were not backed by facts.
“Where is the evidence of that? . . . We have 28 municipalities in the Western Cape where we’re in government — 18 of those have coloured mayors, nine have whites and only one has a black mayor.
“This is clear evidence that anyone who comes up with that nonsense does not know our structures and clearly does not understand the Western Cape.”