Patricia de Lille took part in a revealing TV interview on Friday morning involving the Institute of Race Relations' Gareth van Onselen, who explained to an eNCA host that despite the mayor of Cape Town's interminable protestations that she is pure as the driven snow, she refuses to answer a simple question: did she send an SMS asking an interview panel member to subvert the outcome of a city manager selection process?
Shorn of her usual composure, De Lille became scornful and angry, attacking Van Onselen - chief of staff to Tony Leon when he was leader of the DA - before doing just as he predicted she would: refusing to answer.
Instead, she said a proper process must be followed in investigating this allegation and the many others levelled against her in the past year or so.
In another revealing moment, after De Lille had made her final bitter mayoral speech to the City of Cape Town council on Thursday, DA deputy federal chair Thomas Walters said she was following the same Stalingrad strategy adopted by former president Jacob Zuma in so many of his legal travails. "The DA is not going to play that game. We will not support the culture of a Jacob Zuma SA," said Walters.
De Lille has overplayed her hand, and the racism tirade that five of her allies aimed at the DA after they dramatically quit the council and the party on Thursday did neither them or her any credit. The race card is played so indiscriminately these days that it's become more joker than top trump. In fact, those who resort to it have generally already lost whatever war they are waging.
The evidence against De Lille in various affidavits and investigative reports demands answers, which she refuses to give. Did she send the SMS, for example. As a self-proclaimed corruption fighter, why was she so keen to stop alleged corruption being reported to the council she led?
De Lille's protestations about malicious smear campaigns no doubt carry more than a whiff of truth, but her own habit of kicking hot potatoes into the long grass has cost her the respect she once commanded, and sealed her fate...