DA suspends debate on De Lille’s future pending legal advice
City of Cape Town mayor Particia De Lille has halted a debate by the DA’s leadership on her future in the party.
The party on Saturday had been in discussion about her future as the mayor of the city after 70% of the DA Cape Town caucus moved a motion of no confidence in her last week using its newly adopted recall clause.
After submitting reasons why she should not be sacked earlier this week‚ De Lille has since served the party with legal papers.
In a media statement on Saturday‚ deputy chairperson of the federal council Natasha Mazzone said the DA had decided to suspend talks on the De Lille matter after receiving the legal papers.
"During the course of these deliberations we received legal papers from Ms De Lille advising that she intends approaching the courts. As a result we have suspended discussions pending legal advice. The FedEx (federal executive) will resume discussions early next week once the legal advice is at hand‚" said Mazzone.
She said the party‚ in the interim‚ would "continue to impress upon the City of Cape Town caucus to remain focused on ensuring excellence in service delivery to the people of Cape Town".
Mazzone said the DA caucus had in motivating their motion of no confidence in De Lille advanced various reasons which included that she had repeatedly breached the code of conduct for councillors‚ the constitution of the DA‚ brought the DA into disrepute and breached the conditions of her suspension.
"In addition‚ Ms De Lille’s conduct in the public domain has amounted to frequent criticisms of the DA and the DA’s management of her case‚ to the extent that it appears she does not consider herself part of the DA any longer - or at least considers herself more important than it and above the rules of the party. Her recent comment that she is ‘no longer cooperating with the DA’ means she cannot effectively govern on a DA mandate‚" said Mazzone.
She said the party had held lengthy deliberations considering all elements of the De Lille matter. "At all times the FedEx has approached this matter with the highest level of seriousness and thoroughness given the importance of the issues at hand‚" she added.