De Lille is back
New political party is in the offing
FORMER Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille is back in the political arena and is expected to announce the formation of a new political party today.
De Lille took a two-week break after quitting the DA and relinquishing her mayoral chain. But it is understood that during this time she was involved in the formation of a new political party that would contest the general elections next year.
The announcement, according to one source, will put the heat on the DA. It “will be messy” and threaten the DA, a party with which she had been embroiled in legal disputes that led to her resignation on October 31.
“I want to remain in politics. It’s the mechanics – the how – that I will share with the public today,” De Lille said, indicating that she had ended her two-week wandering in the political wilderness. “The DA to me is history. I have moved on,” she added.
Asked whether the party had a name yet, she responded: “It doesn’t. We are busy with the process of putting structures in place. We are working on the logistics. But over the past two weeks I have been consulting on the ground and the announcement is about the outcome of those consultations,” she said.
A source confirmed that De Lille would unveil a party today, but the logistics of the logo, its name, colours and other details would come later.
“We are working on communication structures, like the website, Facebook page, Twitter, etc,” De Lille added.
The announcement comes two days after the DA, through City of Cape Town councillors Xanthea Limberg and Angus Mckenzie, laid criminal charges against De Lille related to an SMS she allegedly sent to Limberg, asking her to score former city manager Achmat Ebrahim high in an interview as she wanted to keep him.
De Lille dismissed the claim, saying it was part of the continued attack on her name, because Limberg had signed a declaration after the interviews confirming that the process of selecting the city manager was fair.
Political analyst Professor Bheki Mngomezulu said a new political party was not the best option for the political veteran, who had a fallout with the DA after merging her own political party, Independent Democrats, with it.
The merger saw the DA’S membership grow significantly in the Western Cape, leading to the party’s control of the municipality and the province.
Mngomezulu warned that despite De Lille’s political credentials, a new party would not last long and would eventually “die a natural death”.
“Many might join the party, but most of them will be vying for positions,” Mngomezulu said.
He said among those who might support De Lille’s party were the five councillors who also resigned after claiming there was racism within the DA and expressing disdain for the way it handled De Lille.
Former chief whip Shane August, mayoral committee members Siya Mamkeli and Suzette Little and councillors Gregchan Barnardo and Thulani Stemele, have lodged a defamation case against DA leader Mmusi Maimane, claiming R1 million each.
They say Maimane failed to retract a public statement he made in which he claimed that they were implicated in a Bowman Gilfillan report and that they we were covering up corruption in the City of Cape Town.
Their names did not appear in the report, nor were they implicated in the investigation, they said.
Asked if he would join the mooted party, August said he would wait and see what the announcement would be about before making a decision.