Barry Streek
The Cape Town City Council’s rules committee is meeting today and is expected to clear suspended mayor Peter Marais, allowing him to be reinstated by Monday.
Should Marais be reinstated in this manner, major conflict within the ruling Democratic Alliance is likely to burst out into the open and could eventually lead to a break-up of the alliance between the Democratic Party and the New National Party.
Although the rules committee is to meet, no agenda has been sent out to members as is usually the case, but Marais’s position is almost certain to be discussed.
It is understood that at the initiative of Speaker Danny de la Cruz the committee is likely to conclude that former judge Willem Heath did not have sufficient evidence in his commission of inquiry to conclude that Marais had misled the public about the renaming of Adderley and Wale Streets after former presidents Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk.
“If Marais is reinstated, war will break out,” a council source told the Mail & Guardian. “And it will be worse than Afghanistan,” he said.