Former DA chief says he defected to 'stick it to Zille'

Former Democratic Alliance Cape Town metro chairman Grant Pascoe, who defected to the ANC this week, has described party leader Helen Zille as "neurotic" and said his shock move was his way of "sticking it to her".

"I don't have any financial woes. She's a liar and believes the BS she's being fed [by some in the DA]," was his response to claims by Zille that he had accepted R1-million and a car for switching political allegiance.

He said his change of heart had been a long time coming.

"I needed to make a move or else I was going to go insane. I've had to deal with [Zille's] sickness for a long time. The ANC was a natural fit for me."

During his announcement at Luthuli House on Monday, Pascoe said he had grown weary of the DA for abusing coloureds, adding that Zille served the interests of whites over that of coloured and black voters.

He said he had called ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who at first thought he was joking.

"He asked me to fly up to Johannesburg and we had a meeting, which was arranged by [ANC spokesman] Jackson Mthembu. I said I wanted to come over and he said that I should speak to my family before the announcement was made."

Pascoe said he informed his wife of his decision.

An ANC insider said he had seen Pascoe in the company of former ANC Luthuli House staffer Cheslyn Mostert and former Stellenbosch municipal manager and convicted Travelgate fraudster Bruce Kannemeyer at a Currie Cup semifinal between Western Province and the Lions in October 2012.

Pascoe acknowledged that he was at the game in the company of Kannemeyer, whom he says he knew from their interactions in the South African Local Government Association, but he denied that he was friendly or had any dealings with Mostert.

At the match, the same ANC insider who spotted Pascoe said: "He was in a suite with a lot of [ANC] heavyweights, drinking expensive whisky. I asked one of the guys what he was doing here and he told me: 'Wait, soon he will join the ANC.'"

Pascoe said his move to the ANC was unconditional and he had not demanded anything, adding that he was "just a normal activist".

"I'm helping out in the Northern Cape. That's where I am now.

"I needed to give Helen [Zille] a punch in the gut like she's given me on many occasions when I was overlooked."

He was referring to the two times he was overlooked to become Cape Town mayor, first when Dan Plato won the approval of the DA electoral college and the second time when Patricia de Lille was chosen as the party's mayoral candidate ahead of the 2011 local government elections.

"I'm coming back to Cape Town next week and there's a couple of DA councillors walking over to the ANC," Pascoe boasted.

He is widely credited with growing the DA in its Mitchells Plain heartland, where he is well known, was a ward councillor for many years and recruited many of the current ward councillors for the DA.

"He is definitely the biggest DA fish the Western Cape ANC has hooked in many years," a senior DA source told the Sunday Times.

Zille said Pascoe was upset because he had lost out twice for Cape Town's mayoral seat.

"As far as I was concerned, we had a friendly and relaxed relationship.

"I rarely ever saw him, but when we did it was always pleasant," she said.

"Now, four years after a mayoral electoral college, it comes out that he was angry because I asked him some difficult questions in the interview.

"I asked everyone difficult questions, especially Patricia De Lille, who went on to be nominated as our mayoral candidate."

She said Pascoe had done "various things" in his department that had worried De Lille - "to the point that she was going to drop him from her mayoral committee after the election.

"He clearly got wind of that. He knew he had reached a dead end in the DA because of non-performance and he went where he was promised better career prospects.

"It is as simple as that," said Zille.