De Lille must put up or shut up

Love her or loathe her, you cannot deny that Patricia de Lille is no amateur when it comes to politics. Whether political history judges her a saint or a sinner in the complex City of Cape Town morass, there is no doubt she dealt her erstwhile party, the Democratic Alliance, a number of heavy blows.

Now, though, she has reached a crossroads in her political life. Put bluntly, she must put up or shut up.

With the formation of her new political “movement”, which she calls For Good, De Lille has accurately zeroed in on the frustration of many voters with the current political parties.

Her first poster reads: “South Africa needs good people to fight for good people”, followed by “I am Patricia de Lille and I believe in good”.

It’s a clever bit of marketing because De Lille wants people to see her as good in the sense of being honest and upright, as well as good in the sense of being competent. But then again, that will be proved through the course of time and only at the ballot box.

De Lille’s references to the “thousands of people” who urged her to form a new political party, coupled with her claims that she got a “message” from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, will worry some who might otherwise support her.

Why the showboating? And why the link to the ANC after she has publicly rubbed shoulders with both the ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters?

Many people in the Western Cape – especially the coloured voters who flocked to the DA in response to the ANC’s unashamed African-focused “affirmative action” in the province, never mind the incompetence of the ANC provincial leadership when it led the administration – have not forgotten the past.

Whatever the DA’s faults, it is still a strong counter to the ANC. And that is De Lille’s biggest problem.