Mayor Patricia De Lille says she will remain focused on clearing her name during the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) disciplinary hearing processes.
According to De Lille, she has received numerous settlement proposals from DA’s leadership over the past few weeks and has also been hounded by media queries pertaining to whether she will negotiate an exit.
She has remained resolute about being wrongly accused of a number of serious charges, such as her charge of gross misconduct. She also maintains that she has been found guilty without a proper hearing or due process in the Steenhuisen Report, and is seeking for these findings to be reviews in the Western Cape High Court. The Steenhuisen Report is a 34-page written by a team led by John Steenhuisen, in which De Lille was accused of nepotism and being ill-fit to manage the City of Cape Town.
De Lille says she has built a reputation as a fighter of corruption in her decades of service to the country. The allegations of corruption against her have tarnished her reputation, as well as that of the DA, she maintains.
According to the Mayor, her focus will be to clear her name and restore her personal reputation. She will shift all her energy to prepare for her disciplinary hearing.
Many DA supporters are moving allegiances as they see how @PatriciaDeLille is being treated. Imagine if she joins Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC? Bye-bye Cape Town?
— Ferial Haffajee (@ferialhaffajee) February 23, 2018
The DA has proposed dates for the disciplinary hearing, and De Lille will be expected to to respond to the proposed dates after she has finalises her counsel. In the meanwhile, her lawyers have informed the DA’s Federal Legal Commission that she will expect the disciplinary hearing to be open to the media.
Both the Constitutional Court and Western Cape High Court have agreed that a vote of no confidence is the ultimate sanction and most severe political consequence. These two courts have also agreed that public representatives should be allowed to cast their vote freely and without feelings of guilt to De Lille. The Western Cape High Court has ordered that no councillor should labour under negative consequences pertaining to their vote.
According to De Lille, 40 DA councillors who have voted against the motion of no confidence have complained of victimisation and intimidation by other party members and public representatives of the DA. She expects DA leadership to act swiftly against those who have betrayed the party’s principals and acted against the Western Cape High Court’s order.
Picture: Twitter