The DA caucus in Cape Town has requested permission from its Federal Executive to go ahead with a motion of no confidence against Mayor, Patricia de Lille.
The fresh motion of no confidence differs from a previous one held in the city, where de Lille survived with the help of opposition parties.
The new motion, will according to its crafters, be a test of the caucus’ confidence in the Mayor.
DA caucus leader, JP Smith told Political Analysis South Africa on Tuesday, 17 April 2018 that the motion was brought by the Democratic Alliance (DA) members following the resolution taken by party delegates at the party’s recent congress to include a “recall clause” in the constitution.
Smith says the party previously had no mechanism to recall a public representative who no longer governed along party principles.
“The party had an aberration in it’s constitution unlike the ANC and the EFF and other parties that have recall clauses in their constitutions…our constitution did not have a mechanism so we could get married but not divorced,” he said.
Smith argues that a number of issues have arisen since the last motion of no confidence against de Lille, which have led to more DA caucus members losing confidence against her.
“Since the last motion of no confidence the relationship with the Mayor has not improved it has in fact deteriorated,” he said.
“Her daily media utterances, attacks on the party, attacks on the individual members, attacks on the leadership of the party have created a completely untenable situation…many other organisations faced with similar situations…would’ve taken immediate steps to remove that leader or senior manager,” he added.