Patricia de Lille faces Black Wednesday today. She has reported that she will be handing in reasons why she should not be fired as mayor of Cape Town to the Democratic Alliance’s federal executive.
De Lille told EWN that she was ready to make her representations to the ruling party in Cape Town. “I’m ready for the submission. It should be in before 3pm in the afternoon (today, Wednesday 2 May) and I’m ready. I’ve always said I’m prepared to subject myself to due process and I’ll just follow the process or the procedures,” she said.
As she suggested, De Lille has until 3 pm today to make representations to the DA’s federal executive – led by Member of Parliament James Selfe – on why she should not be fired as mayor.
It is widely expected that the federal executive will not accept these reasons, and it could within 48 hours – by Friday – announce that her party membership has been revoked. This would mean that Mayor de Lille would have to vacate her office on Friday – or by Monday at the latest.
If, indeed, the party’s federal executive does not accept her reasons for staying in office – as is widely expected – she would be asked to resign. If she does not do so, her membership will be revoked.
If the latter option is followed by De Lille, she may choose to be physically removed from her office. This could turn into a major media event – which would be likely to take place on Friday – or Monday at the latest – at the civic centre.
De Lille lost an internal vote of no confidence by the DA city council caucus last month. She lost by 97 votes to 41. In February she defeated a DA-driven vote of no confidence put to the full council by one vote. She was supported in the February vote by the official opposition ANC and other opposition parties, including the EFF.
