FRIDAY, 6.30PM:
A NATIONAL Party MP, Donald Lee, has defected to the Democratic Party, adding to the blows dealt this week and last week by by-election defeats in which the NP lost long-standing strongholds to the DP.
Douglas Gibson of the DP said that Lee’s move reflects a dramatic shift of feeling in South African politics.
“We know that many more public representatives in the NP and other parties would like to cross the floor to the DP.”
The Constitution, however, prohibits MPs from retaining their seats should they decide to change their political affiliations.
“We know [those who would like to join the DP], we know who they are. They will follow in due course,” said Gibson.
The DP also gained former ANC Women’s League executive member Nocowa Nonduma, from New Brighton, and Bill Stibbe, an NP councillor in the Southern Peninsula municipality of the Western Cape.
Lee said he cannot continue in the NP’s Eastern Cape team, “which continues to operate on a racial basis”. He said he has been under pressure from the province’s half-million strong coloured community to quit the NP. He will now work to mobilise support for the DP in that community.
Gibson commended Lee for having the courage to give up the salary and privileges that come with being a Member of Parliament.
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