The implications would be ”grave” should the Western Cape provincial government succeed to alter Cape Town’s mayoral system, incumbent mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday. ”It will undermine international confidence in the future of democracy,” she said.
”This move by the African National Congress is confirmation that they are not prepared to accept the outcome of an election if they lose.”
Zille was responding to speculation that provincial minister for local government, Richard Dyantyi, was set to strip her of her executive powers.
Local newspaper reports suggested that Dyantyi intended to replace the city’s Democratic Alliance-controlled mayoral committee with a multiparty executive committee.
Dyantyi’s spokesperson, Vusi Tshose, refused to comment, saying: ”We can’t dwell on speculation that is going around. Should there by anything that the minister wants to inform the public of, he will do it in due course.”
Meanwhile, Zille said the ANC has lost four previous attempts to topple the current multiparty city government.
”And we are confident they will lose again … We will fight the ANC’s latest attempt to nullify the election outcome with everything we have,” she said in a statement.
She intimated that should the province’s move come to fruition it would lead to a constitutional crisis because local government was intended to be an independent sphere of government.
”It is also hypocritical because the ANC is not attempting to change the governance system in any other city — only in the one where they lost the election,” Zille said, adding that 62% of Capetonians voted for opposition parties in the March 1 elections.
Meanwhile, one of Zille’s city coalition partners, the United Independent Front (UIF), has suggested that intended moves to change the mayoral system may be an attempt by the ANC to cover up corruption in the city.
”One wonders why the ANC is busy planning to strip Zille’s power. Is it because the multiparty government has exposed lots [of] corruption, which could not be exposed by the ANC administration?” Vincent Jonas, the UIF’s deputy provincial spokesperson, asked. — Sapa