The knives are out for long-serving DA federal council chairman James Selfe as the party battles to manage the fallout over the axing of Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille.
The Sunday Times has established from well-placed multiple sources that several senior leaders of the DA want Selfe to be held “accountable” for the party’s messy handling of the De Lille matter.
DA insiders this week indicated that party leader Mmusi Maimane and chief whip John Steenhuisen were among those who have privately expressed unhappiness over Selfe’s management of the De Lille affair.
Sources said Maimane, Steenhuisen and other DA leaders started pointing fingers at Selfe after De Lille defeated them in the high court, which ordered the party to halt De Lille’s dismissal.
Those arguing for Selfe to be axed say that the DA, in its legal arguments, should have stuck to invoking its recall clause which empowers it to remove defiant representatives.