Athol Trollip and Veliswa Mvenya.
The Democratic Alliance is to probe infighting in one of its most crucial elections sites, the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, following the publication of the party’s local elections candidate list.
Affidavits have been drawn up by both sides. A supporter of DA provincial chairperson Veliswa Mvenya claims that DA mayoral candidate Athol Trollip tried to bribe her to dig up dirt about Mvenya.
But Trollip says in his affidavit that he was in church in Port Alfred and not near Motherwell in Port Elizabeth at 9am two Sundays ago when he was supposed to have offered the DA’s ward 51 councillor, Nontuthuzelo Jack, R5 000 to spy on Mvenya before the party’s electoral congress next year.
Mvenya is likely to contest the position of provincial leader.
Besides running as the party’s mayoral candidate for the metro, Trollip is the Eastern Cape DA leader and the federal chairperson of the party’s national leadership. He has promised to scale down his positions should he become the metro mayor.
The chairperson of the DA’s federal council James Selfe, is to visit the Eastern Cape on Friday to “talk to whoever needs to be talked to”.
Selfe said Mvenya did not lay an official complaint, but she suggested that the allegations be investigated. Trollip made a similar call because he wants to clear his name.
Selfe attributed the jousting to pre-election jostling for positions. “There are a lot of people unhappy about positions on the list, as always happens before elections,” he said.
Asked whether this would affect the party’s campaign in the metro, where the opposition believes it has a chance to wrest power from the ANC, Selfe said he didn’t think so.
“Generally speaking, no, it won’t damage the campaign. We have a squabble over lists every single time we have an election. In 2014, various people were unhappy and threatened to take us to court, but it didn’t affect our electoral prospects in any manner.
“People vote for the party and not any individual, and individuals tend to have an inflated sense of their centrality to the campaign.”
Selfe said the intervention from national level in provincial matters was not unusual in the party, which is a strong advocate of federalism.
“Actually, a lot of functions are performed where they can most efficiently be performed. For example, we don’t have provincial advertising campaigns, it’s done by national,” he said.
In this case, he felt it was necessary to go and “have a look” at the infighting and hear both sides.
He added that he would stay on in the province over the weekend to attend a DA rock concert in Port Elizabeth on Saturday to encourage voters to register for the elections.
Mvenya confirmed that she and Jack would be meeting Selfe, even though she didn’t formally call for a probe. As provincial chairperson, she would normally refer a matter for investigation to the provincial leadership and disciplinary committee.
“Since I’m affected, I can’t ask for it to be investigated, because I’m involved,” she said. “It is up to the party to investigate.”
She said the allegations weren’t good for a party that prided itself on promoting integrity.
A supporter of Mvenya, who preferred to remain anonymous, said Trollip was trying to get himself re-elected provincial leader next year, but Trollip denied this claim as “ludicrous”.
He has also denied the allegations made by Jack, and he said he would sue the East London-based Daily Dispatch newspaper for publishing the allegations in the first place.
“I dispute the allegations; they are crazy. I believe I will be vindicated. It is all part of a conspiracy around elections and positions,” he said. “Those who made these allegations will be held to account.”
Trollip said this could mean action of some sort, which could include a party disciplinary hearing, or even him laying charges of crimen injura.
He said he had built up a good reputation in politics over the years and he didn’t want it to be “sullied”.
Despite this, the DA’s elections campaign was going well and “I don’t want to speculate whether this is damaging the campaign”, Trollip said.
He didn’t want to give any figures from the party’s weekly polls in the metro, but said “the ANC got 48% in the last elections (2014) and we got 42%, and in these elections we will surpass that”.
The Daily Dispatch reported that Jack had also claimed that Trollip told her she would be included on the metro’s list if she supported him and not Mvenya.
Several of Mvenya’s supporters say they have been left off the list, which favoured leaders from the DA Student Organisation. They say this would help to boost Trollip’s supporters’ campaign before next year’s congress.
There have been low-level racial tensions in the party over the expulsion of DA councillor Knight Mali, who made allegations about racism in the party.
The party’s final candidate list was approved two weeks ago.
The local government elections are expected to take place early in August.