Western Cape Premier Peter Marais has denied fresh allegations of sexual harassment from female New National Party colleagues, has vowed to file a legal counter-claim of not less than R5-million, and has blamed the claims on a campaign to discredit him.
Marais on Thursday dismissed the R1,5-million sexual harassment suit by former NNP MEC Audrey van Zyl. In court documents, she claimed he had made several unwanted sexual approaches between June 1999 and February 2000.
It is the second time in two years that similar claims have been levelled publicly. In December 2000 another former MEC, Frieda Adams, told the Cape High Court in an affidavit of unwanted, inappropriate approaches.
Marais maintained he was innocent and blamed the allegations on an ongoing political plot to discredit him. ”It is clear to me [Democratic Alliance leader] Tony Leon is using people like Audrey van Zyl to fight back with sleaze,” he warned. ”Do not start a war on sexual sleaze; it might rub off on you.”
One would expect Van Zyl’s claim to damage Marais, a self-styled Christian Democrat who has attacked the Constitution as unbiblical and, in the name of Christianity, lambasted gays and abortionists.
But the former Cape Town mayor is a Teflon politician who has weathered several political storms.
Expelled from the DA and stripped of the Cape Town mayor’s job after the street-naming fiasco last year, he moved up the pecking order by landing the Western Cape premiership after the NNP broke away from the alliance.
In vintage, guns-blazing style, Marais claimed previous allegations of sexual misconduct had not been substantiated. ”Nothing has come out as truth, not in court, not in any inquiry, no matter if they spent R1,2-million on the Heath commission … There were other women who were put up against me who now openly say it’s a plot.”
But the premier’s eyes turned misty when he spoke of his family, which had been hurt, and his own feelings of helplessness. ”I will fight back but with the truth, because the truth will set you free, he said.
Van Zyl, who was removed from the National Council of Provinces after an NNP disciplinary hearing last year, was unavailable for comment.