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De Lille says has nothing to fear

Patricia de Lille
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City of Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille says she has nothing to fear. This is ahead of her party’s second internal motion of no confidence in her.

De Lille and her party have not seen eye to eye for more than a year. In February, a motion of no confidence in her brought by the DA in council failed by one vote.

She was then taken to a disciplinary hearing to account for allegations of mismanagement and bringing the party into disrepute.

Those hearings have also come to a halt for now.  Now, a second motion of confidence in her but this time not through the council but the party. The DA’s Federal Executive will make the final ruling on whether she stays or not.

The caucus is basing de Lille’s future on a new recall clause adopted by the party at its recent congress in Pretoria.

It gives the party power to ask any public representative in a DA-led government to resign if the caucus loses confidence in them.

“As everybody knows that the DA amended their constitution to create a de Lille clause to get rid of me and of course that was done to side step the existing disciplinary hearing that’s there, that I’m still fighting for to be open to the public. So this seems to be a short cut wanting to get rid of me but my message to all of them is that I fear no one. I only fear my God.”

The African National Congress (ANC) says it will not allow the DA’s short circuit approach to remove de Lille as mayor.

Xolani Sotashe ANC leader in the City of Cape Town Council says, “They don’t want to bring this issue to council because they know very well that they do not have numbers in council. The councillors that support de Lille defeat Helen Zille stroke James Selfe and Mmusi Maimane. They can do whatever they want with their councillors but de Lille was appointed by our council. That’s our standpoint, so we voted for de Lille to be mayor.”

Political analysts are speculating that this could be de Lille’s last council meeting – saying her future in the DA is over.

“It’s clear that the ‘De Lille Clause’ was added to the DA’s constitution to remove Patricia de Lille first of all before anyone else and of course every party chooses its own leader from time to time. So sadly it seems that De Lille’s career as mayor will be over in a few days,” says political analyst Keith Gottschalk.

The ANC has said it would welcome de Lille in the party. Her appearance at Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela memorial service organised by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) recently got tongues wagging.

But the former Independent Democrats (ID) leader has kept mum about her political future. For now she says – she will not go down without a fight.

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