Firebrand South African opposition Member of Parliament Patricia de Lille is to clarify her political future at a press conference in Cape Town on Wednesday amid widespread speculation that she is to start a new political party.
Sources close to de Lille said on Tuesday night that De Lille had been approached by a range of existing political parties to join their ranks — including the New National Party and the Democratic Alliance.
Former Western Cape Premier Peter Marais, who is set to leave the New National Party, is understood to have asked her to join his new political home. Marais is a member of the Western Cape legislature but has made it clear that he is about to shift political allegiance.
The DA has also made it clear they could provide a political home for De Lille. But while De Lille, who played a key role in forcing an investigation into the controversial arms deal, is expected to leave her current political home — the Pan Africanist Congress — she is unlikely to back existing opposition parties.
She has represented the PAC in parliament since 1994. The PAC has just three seats in the 400-member national assembly.
An aide said on Tuesday night that De Lille would be holding a press conference at a Cape Town hotel early on Wednesday afternoon.
Elected politicians at provincial parliamentary or national parliamentary level may switch political parties until April 4 without losing their seats. If De Lille starts a new political party she is likely to position it somewhere between the Democratic Alliance — the current official opposition, which is on the political Right — and the ruling African National Congress, which is social democratic.
De Lille has found herself on a collision course with the PAC particularly over that party’s stance over Zimbabwe. She has tended to criticise the human rights record of President Robert Mugabe while the prevailing view in her party has been to back Mugabe’s “land reform” programme. – I-Net-Bridge