Cape Town | Wednesday
DEFIANT unicity mayor Peter Marais refused to quit when asked to do so by party leader Tony Leon and has now planned a triumphant return to office on Wednesday.
Speaking on SAFM on Wednesday, he said: ”Councillors, members of the public and even a church choir will be there to welcome me back.”
Marais has been on special leave since the end of August and returns to work in defiance of Leon’s request that the step down or be forced out by the Democratic Alliance’s national management committee which will meet on Friday.
The unicity council on Tuesday cleared Marais of breaching its code of conduct during the street-naming debacle, but Leon insists the mayor should quit because he is not proving an effective local leader.
”Under Mr Marais’ leadership, the DA in Cape Town has lurched from one crisis to the next controversy, and this ongoing state of affairs came to define our governance of this city,” Leon told reporters
The row has split the DA, with the alliance’s deputy leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk backed by the New National Party’s Federal Council, supporting Marais and accusing Leon of acting unfairly against the mayor.
Marais said he had not spoken to Leon who last week sent a letter requesting him to step down.
”I haven’t spoken to Mr Leon at all.” Marais has also refused to take responsibility for some of the controversies that has characterised his reign in the city, blaming the cutting of water to poor communities and the Newlands soccer controversy on others.
The water cuts, he said, had taken place while he was sitting at home on special leave.
On the Newlands issue, he said: ”It is not me, but the Democratic Party councillors in the executive council who did not want Bafana Bafana to play there.”
On whether the DA would split because of the tensions between the alliance’s DP and New National Party partners, Marais said: ”I don’t know how we will take it from here. I don’t want to predict what will happen, but there are serious problems.” – Sapa