NATIONAL NEWS - Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, who so far has survived so many attempts by the DA to see the back of her that you would be forgiven for thinking she has nine lives, will live to see another day as mayor following reports that the motion of no confidence that she was set to face on Thursday has been withdrawn.
The City of Cape Town council was expected to bring a motion of no confidence against the embattled politician after lunch. However, the motion has been withdrawn after a deal was reached, although the terms of the deal are not yet clear.
In a separate matter, council speaker Dirk Smit is set to face a motion of no confidence, this one brought by the opposition, ANC.
This would have been the second motion of no confidence De Lille has faced at the hands of her own party. She survived the last one by a single vote, leading some to question whether she would have been able to make it out of this one unscathed.
De Lille issued a statement on Twitter, saying the motions of no confidence “have been on the basis of untested allegations without evidence”.She also expressed her desire to “remain positive and continue to put the people of Cape Town first”, ending the message on a philosophical note with the words “what must be, will be”.
Last month, the party’s removal of De Lille was declared unlawful and set aside with costs in the Western Cape High Court.
The judgment found there was noncompliance with the DA’s own constitution in the handling of the disciplinary process that culminated in the removal of De Lille as a member of the party and then as mayor of Cape Town.The party’s removal of De Lille was declared unlawful, and was set aside with costs.
The DA’s refusal to give De Lille the opportunity to give evidence in mitigation was said to be an example of noncompliance in the matter by judge Andre le Grange.The party was meant to give De Lille a chance to make representations, “which in our view it did not do”.
The judge said the process taken by the DA’s Federal Legal Council (FLC), which handles internal matters, was legally incorrect.
