Editorial
Why DA was forced to deal with its bête noire
The joint announcement by the DA and its outgoing mayor in the City of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille, should be understood for what it really is - a desperate political move and an attempt to claw back some of its lost support and public sympathy.
On Monday De Lille and DA leader Mmusi Maimane appeared side by side at a press conference to announce that they had agreed to smoke a peace pipe after a turbulent and bruising 13 months for the official opposition.
The deal will lead to De Lille stepping down as mayor in October and the party withdrawing all the charges against her. But there are questions that must be asked. One is, why would the DA, which only a few weeks ago was still hellbent on getting rid of her, decide to let it go?The party had spent a year trying every trick to eject her from the mayoral office and the party. In its pursuit, the DA tried, unsuccessfully, to bring her to book with what appeared to be eight trumped-up charges. So desperate was it to get rid of her that it made three attempts through a motion of no confidence - with the last called off at the eleventh hour. It even terminated her party membership.
Throughout this ordeal De Lille insisted she had done nothing wrong and vowed to do everything to clear her name. She took the party to court a number of times and claimed a number of victories along the way. One was when she successfully challenged, in the high court in Cape Town, the termination of her party membership. The court ruled that her membership be reinstated because the termination had been unlawful and therefore invalid.After all this, why would the party just give in? It's simple. The DA is desperate, and worried. The possibility of losing support in next year's election is real.
A recent poll by Ipsos predicts that the DA, which received 22% in 2014, could lose as much as 9%. The research says the infighting in the Western Cape could even lead to the DA losing its grip on that province. This would be disastrous and the DA knows this. Losing the Western Cape, the only province it governs, would render the DA irrelevant...
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