/ 1 January 2002

Messy Cape politics just gets messier

The African National Congress in the Western Cape said it ”appreciated the difficult step taken” by Premier Peter Marais in resigning his post pending potential criminal charges being laid against him.

Addressing a media conference at the Western Cape legislature, ANC provincial leader Ebrahim Rasool said the swiftness of the New National Party’s action was ”some welcome decisiveness in a very messy political situation in the Western Cape”.

The Democratic Alliance said it ”does not glory in the downfall of Mr Peter Marais”.

”However, this must surely vindicate (DA leader) Tony Leon and the DA resolution last year that Mr Marais was not fit for public office,” DA Chief Whip Douglas Gibson said.

Rasool said his party had consistently championed the rights of women and institutionalised measures to prevent women from being violated.

He added that the ANC, according to its agreement with the NNP, could not prescribe to the NNP how to address its problems ”but the decisiveness, swiftness and dignity in their action suggests that the ANC-NNP coalition agreement is founded on solid ground and can

withstand any challenges”.

”We are determined to build on the many gains of the last six months.”

Answering questions, Rasool said that under the ANC’s agreement with the NNP, the latter had the right to appoint the premier. ” So, whoever they appoint, we’ll respect.”

Gibson said NNP leader Marthinus Van Schalkwyk and his

leadership group had withdrawn from the DA — and from a united opposition — in defence of Marais.

”It is understood that Mr Marais faces serious criminal charges, which left him and Mr Van Schalkwyk no other course of action. Any attempt for them to make a virtue out of necessity is startlingly

inappropriate,” Gibson said.

The opposition DA’s new leader in the Western Cape legislature, Helen Zille, who replaced former leader Hennie Bester this week after his resignation from active politics, said ”we welcome Mr Marais’s resignation”.

It was untenable for him to continue in the position of premier following numerous allegations of sexual misconduct over the past few months.

”We hopefully will now see an end to the kind of gutter politics that have come to symbolise Mr Marais’s term as premier of the Western Cape.”

Zille said it was unlikely that Marais would have gone of his own volition — ”and the hand of the ANC in this is clear”.

”Last week on more than one occasion in the provincial

parliament the former premier came under fire from ANC ranks. This left Mr Van Schalkwyk with no real option but to offer his own man on the altar of co-operative government,” Zille said. – Sapa