Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille says the Democratic Alliance is a small white boys’ club and regrets trying to make a politician out of policeman Lennit Max. She spoke to the Mail & Guardian Online about how she started the ID, the upcoming floor-crossing period and South Africa’s next president.
1. You founded the Independent Democrats in 2003. If you had to do it again, what would you do differently?
Well, I’ve never looked back. There’s no manual there to tell you how to do it [start a party].
The challenge was not so much placed on me — I always knew I could do it. I actually put a challenge to South Africans to see how they would respond to a woman leader, and I must say that after a time it [the country] is busy transforming. We are beginning to break down the stereotypes because people overwhelmingly responded [favourably].
But for me it was about the pleasure. To travel the length and breadth of my country, to see the beauty of South Africa, but also having to experience that there are just so many problems.
What would I do again? I think I’ll follow the same recipe.
2. You’ve earned a reputation as a whistle-blower. Isn’t there a danger of the ID becoming just another Democratic Alliance?
Oooh, no, never ever, never, never ever! You know our existence as a political party came about by choice by South Africans. They made that choice to have the ID. I think people must respect that choice. And the major reason why people voted for us is because our approach to politics is different from the DA’s. I don’t even want to be compared to the DA because there’s absolutely no comparison. Our approach to politics is that there’s the ID and the rest.
The DA will remain a white boys’ club — a small white boys’ club — with the main focus to try to take South Africa back to where we came from, to maintain the status quo of apartheid. Our approach is different. We are saying, this is our country, we are passionate about our country, we love our country.
We are the only opposition party to have taken the ANC and the DA head on.
3. Embattled Independent Democrats member of the Western Cape legislature Lennit Max said last week he “strongly denies” accusations that he has tried to draw out a disciplinary hearing against him in order for him to be able to defect to a new political home next month. On Friday, he withdraw a court application — on the advice of his lawyers, he said — to have labour lawyer Sarah Christie suspended as the chairperson of the disciplinary hearing on the grounds of bias. Why do you think he abandoned his application? What is your opinion of Max?
We tried to make a politician out of a policeman, but we failed. We could never shed that, you know, ‘I want to catch you’, that backstabbing … And so he thought he could just come into the ID and take it over.
He has blown his chances. We have given him a fair trial with an independent chairperson … and he walked out on that. He had forfeited the opportunity of stating his side of the case because he was running away from the truth.
The high court has found that Sarah Christie has behaved in an impeccable manner, that she has kept her cool under very trying circumstances.
So, what she has done now [Christie said last week she would either make a report or continue the hearing after consultation with the two parties — the ID’s legal team and Max’s legal team] is because she still wanted to give him a fair hearing. She’s given him an opportunity to say in 3 000 words what his side of the story is. He was supposed to have submitted it by 5pm yesterday [Tuesday]. But they only submitted it at 12pm last night, over the 3 000 words that she had prescribed. She has also given the ID 3 000 words to respond to what they have submitted yesterday. They will be making a ruling before the end of the week.
He’s almost history. Another day or two and he’ll be history. He will definitely not leave the ID with our seat to the DA. They’ve been flirting with him to make him a candidate. The DA and Lennit Max can write it on their stomachs. They are not leaving with a seat. That [seat] is voted for by the people of the Western Cape and does not belong to Lennit Max or the DA.
4. Last year, you sent out SMSs to councillors all over the country urging them to defect to your party. Will you be doing that again this year?
No, we have not done that. We are fully represented now in all spheres of the government.
Coming back to what is currently happening between September 1 and 15 [the floor-crossing period], we have turned some people down because we not looking at increasing the numbers of our party. We are looking for quality and principled people. People who have a history of commitment. We are expecting to have a gain in terms of people coming to us.
5. When the floor-crossing window periods opens on September 1, there is a danger that you might lose some members of the legislatures, particularly in Gauteng. Are you struggling to keep the party together?
We are aware that in Gauteng [DA leader] Tony Leon had a meeting with [the ID’s] Professor Themba Sono on Monday. They are prepared to take him back to the DA.
That just shows the extent that they will go to just to show that they are taking [from us]. That’s the point he wants to make. [Sono] actually comes from there and now he’s going to go back to the DA.
Also, we have started a disciplinary action against him today … on two charges, and the hearing will take place on August 24.
Do you agree with the floor-crossing legislation?
It’s in the Constitution. Floor-crossing is a constitutional provision. For now, it is not illegal. If we need to change it, we need to amend the Constitution.
But I can understand how people feel at a moral level — that you know you voted for certain representatives in [one] political party and then that person crosses over to another political party.
But I must qualify what I did when I used the floor-crossing legislation. I didn’t use the floor-crossing to go from the Pan African Congress to another political party. I saw the need for something new and something fresh in South Africa and then moved out of the PAC and formed a new political party … and it has just proven to be the correct decision.
6. What are your feelings towards the recent sacking of Jacob Zuma as deputy president and the conviction of Schabir Shaik?
Let’s start with the sacking of Zuma. It just restores my faith in our democracy. It has actually deepened and strengthened our democracy. And it’s also a turning point in our struggle against corruption with the attitude adopted by [President] Thabo Mbeki to show that this is just not on, and that it doesn’t matter how high the offices are that you hold.
You know, it comes with a history. On September 19 1999, when I stood up in Parliament and I said, please investigate because the highest office in the land is implicated and alleged to be involved in corruption, nobody wanted to listen.
That’s why I am so glad that we have an independent judiciary that has proven over and over again that they will not hesitate to act against excesses on the side of the government.
So, we’ve seen it now with the Schabir Shaik trial, and now the Zuma trial is going to start in October. I’ve been asked to come and give evidence in his trial.
And that’s why it is so depressing to hear calls from especially Cosatu [the Congress of South African Trade Unions] for his reinstatement. That shows disregard for the independence of the judiciary. That flies in the face of the government’s strong anti-corruption stance.
Corruption is the cancer in our society that all of us must fight. The ANC as a government is not corrupt. It is a few bad apples within the government that is corrupt, and what we are doing as the ID is trying to assist government to root out those bad apples that are giving all of us a bad image internationally. We will continue to fight corruption, and so we will do with many other issues.
So who will be our president?
I don’t think that the current Deputy President [Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka] may be the president of the country or be elected president of the ANC, because she is the deputy president now. I see her coming in more like a stop-gap measure to manage the process as to who is going to take over from Thabo Mbeki.
What it seems like to me is that Thabo might remain as the president of the ANC and not the president of the country. Once he does that, he indirectly remains the president of the country from behind [the scenes].
There are a couple of names bandied around, but I think it’s just speculation. I think the battle has just begun.
7. What do you think about the new kid on the block, the National Democratic Convention?
Oh, it’s a non-starter. If they do progress further with it, they would basically fight for the same support of the Inkatha Freedom Party. Of course, there is great potential for a political outbreak in violence to erupt again in KwaZulu-Natal.
It would simply be a regional [party]. He [National Democratic Convention leader and former IFP chairperson Ziba Jiyane] doesn’t have a national profile. He might be able to get some support in Gauteng where there is a predominantly IFP support base. But I don’t think he will be able to make any other inroads in other provinces.
8. If you were the president of South Africa, how would you engage with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe?
Engage? I will not engage with him. I think in South Africa there a moral duty and obligation placed on us. We’ve just emerged from a very sad past of human rights abuses … apartheid was declared a crime against humanity.
Therefore it must be our responsibility to condemn the human rights violations taking place in Zimbabwe, and therefore we should not base our foreign policy in South Africa on who used to be our friends in the past.
We must make a distinction between the people of Zimbabwe and the government. My heart goes out for the people of Zimbabwe. For the thousands of displaced farmworkers who have been moved off those farms, black farmworkers [facing] hunger, starvation and homelessness.
So, we must support humanitarian aid. But we should under no condition grant him [Mugabe] a loan if he’s not prepared to accept the conditions, which are very reasonable that South Africa is putting to him.
If the economy in Zimbabwe collapses, we are going to pick up the brunt and I don’t know how we can avoid that happening because South Africa will surely be very badly affected.
The time for engagement with Zimbabwe is over now. It’s time for tough talk and action is needed now.
Quiet diplomacy? It means nothing. Something like that can never exist in an open and free democracy. Thabo Mbeki should take South Africa in his confidence and tell us what he is engaging with. To me, quiet diplomacy says nothing.
9. Recently the ID said it was not surprised by the DA’s “gutter politicking” when the DA handed out pamphlets focused on you during a recent by-election in which the ID was trying to take a ward from the DA. What do you mean by this and how else do you think the DA engages in “gutter politics” against your party?
Besides gutter politics, it’s also very racist politics that they [the DA] are continuing to practise. Like now when we were contesting a ward here in ward 65, a predominantly white ward, they sent out really bad pamphlets about me personally, about what happened in the past. But they are still stuck in the past, because they still want apartheid back. They never had a hand in fighting against apartheid. They always fought in defence of apartheid.
We at the ID will not go down to that level. We are a dignified party that operates within the framework of our Constitution that is loyal to South Africa.
I don’t need to say something good about the government, but I have to say something good to my country, because it’s my country too. But these guys [the DA] don’t have any loyalty to South Africa. Their politics is not about South Africa. Their politics is about the DA, the small white boys’ club.
To sum up our approach, we are not anti-ANC. We are not anti-DA. We are anti-no one, because that a very negative value, if you can call it that, to be attached to. The only thing we are on about is that we are pro-South Africa and we only want the best for our country. We will not allow the ANC or the DA or anyone to mess up our country. We are passionate and loyal about our country.
My credentials are clear and the ID fought against apartheid and we will continue to fight for justice in our country.
10. We still do not know any other ID leaders apart from yourself. Do you agree that the ID is still a one-woman party?
We’ve got a very vocal and strong parliamentary team consisting of eight members of Parliament.
What people must recognise is the fact that you don’t build a profile overnight. It took me 25 years to build a profile that I have now.
It’s just a bit unfair to say that they [the other ID MPs] don’t have profiles because they are in the process of being built. And they are there. We’ve been working hard to build their profiles. That’s why I’ve been so quiet. I took a back seat because I had competent people around me to take the ball and run with it. So, it certainly is not true.