Former Cape Town Mayor Gerald Morkel is expected to announce his resignation as provincial Democratic Alliance leader on Wednesday afternoon.
He is to hold a press conference at the DA caucus room at Parliament later this afternoon. Party sources said on Wednesday they were not certain whether Morkel would remain on as a city councillor and member of the Cape Town unicity executive committee.
Morkel is also expected this afternoon to react to the report of the Desai Commission of Inquiry which found that his evidence to the commission was unsatisfactory. The commission probed his links with German alleged fraudster Jurgen Harksen.
Morkel recently lost the post of Mayor of Cape Town after many of his former New National Party colleagues rejoined their old party and sided with the African National Congress — leading to the election of an ANC mayor.
He lost the post of Premier of the Western Cape last November when he backed the DA after the NNP withdrew from the alliance with the Democratic Party.
Morkel has already acknowledged that his links with Harksen were inappropriate, but has up till now turned down calls from the ANC and NNP for him to resign. – I-Net Bridge