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Dear Colleagues

We start the New Year on a disturbing note with the machinations of the Democratic Alliance (DA) and their action to get rid of their City of Cape Town Executive Mayor Patricia De Lille.

The United Democratic Movement’s (UDM) leadership in the Western Cape has contacted national leadership to ascertain what the Party position is on the matter and I wish to refer you to our statement on 6 January 2018, but we further want to communicate the following:

We firstly wish to commend the UDM’s councillor in the City, Cllr Hlangisa, for voting in favour of the Council conducting its own investigation into the veracity of the claims made against Executive Mayor De Lille.

In our view, the situation as it is playing out, seems to be a repeat of the DA’s manner of practicing politics as had happened in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality. The Cape Town scenario demonstrates that the DA seems to prefer a “kangaroo court style” of ousting who, we can only surmise, they find as “undesirable” in favour of some untoward plan of action.

It is therefore important that the UDM in the Western Cape inform our members, and in particular Cllr Hlangisa, that impeccable sources have informed us that there is something else brewing within the DA and that a bigger scheme is afoot; getting rid of Ms de Lille is just the first step. This severity of the situation is downplayed in the media and what we read in the papers seems to be the tip of the iceberg.

Time will tell whether the following information is true or not, but we have been informed that the real reason behind the DA-attack on Ms de Lille is that they have earmarked Mr Alan Winde as the next Western Cape Premier.

This decision has created the problem of “what to do with” Mr Bonginkosi Madikizela, the DA provincial leader. The solution they seemingly came up with is to make Mr Madikizela executive mayor of the City of Cape Town, but the DA has to get rid of Ms de Lille first to successfully implement the plan.

Apparently, Mr Madikizela has already bought into the “strategy” and he will be deployed as executive mayor to develop the DA’s Western Cape strategy and to promote Mr Winde. Most notably Mr Winde has been, and continues to be, extremely silent - absent even - from the current De Lille “created crisis”.

The onslaught against Ms de Lille had started a few months ago, and the Chairperson of the DA federal council James Selfe has come out guns blazing at his colleague.

The fact that the DA remains implacable and is running a parallel disciplinary process, may nullify the outcome of the Council’s inquiry, for if the DA ends Ms de Lille’s party membership, she can no longer be a councillor and would therefore automatically be ousted as executive mayor.

This is unfortunately a battle which Ms de Lille must fight internally, and we wish her all the best.

This whole scenario brings to mind the silence of Nelson Mandela Bay Executive Mayor Athol Trollip on PwC’s final report and the DA’s reluctance to table the report at Council. The DA’s actions are almost a carbon copy of what happened to our Cllr Bobani in Nelson Mandela Bay, as he was cleared of wrongdoing after having been shown the door.

We do however place our faith in the Council’s inquiry and should Ms de Lille be found clean, the DA will have again overplayed its hand and proved to the electorate in that city that they don’t play a fair game of politics.

Yours sincerely
Mr Bantu Holomisa
UDM President

Issued by UDM