DA plans to oust Prince

The Democratic Alliance is drawing up a secret 14-day programme to oust controversial Western Cape politician Truman Prince, after his successful appeal for reinstatement as Central Karoo District municipality manager.

DA provincial leader Theuns Botha refused to give details, but said the plan would be put into operation next Monday. It was drawn up to ensure ‘we get all our ducks in a row”, but Prince’s removal from office ‘will take a single hour to execute”.

Botha said if the plan failed, the DA would withdraw from its ruling coalition with Prince’s breakaway party, the Independent Civic Organisation of South Africa (Icosa), in the central Karoo municipality. But the alliance would stand in other Western Cape councils.

Prince was expelled from the ANC and fired as municipal manager last year after he was caught on camera by the SABC’s Special Assignment team trying to pick up under-age sex workers. Numerous other charges were laid against him, including theft, crimen injuria, common assault and riotous behaviour.

His return sparked a war of words between the DA and the ANC over who was to blame for the Prince saga. The ANC said its opposite number had no business granting him an appeal, while the DA accused the ANC of ‘totally screwing up” his initial disciplinary hearing.

Icosa, meanwhile, has spoken darkly of a conspiracy against Prince and said it backs him. Icosa’s Western Cape secretary, Andrew Lyon, said: ‘I’m not sure if the ANC’s problem is because he is a coloured leader of Khoisan ethnicity or if it is his vividness in creating change that threatens them. But they set out to destroy his character and image. His legal victory has been very meaningful for us.” But he was careful to assert that Icosa’s alliance with the DA was not in jeopardy.

ANC member of the Western Cape legislature Max Ozinsky said his party was ‘seeking legal advice on the issue” as it did not believe Prince was entitled to an appeal. ‘He exhausted all his rights in that regard,” he said.

Ozinsky claimed Prince’s victory had taken place only because of the DA’s coalition agreement with Icosa in the rural areas of the Western Cape. ‘The DA promised Icosa they would save Prince and their whole relationship is based on that. The DA’s provincial leaders, Theuns Botha and Kent Morkel, stand in direct opposition to Helen Zille and Robin Carlisle on this matter.”

DA legislature member Carlisle said: ‘Over our dead bodies will the DA work with Truman Prince. But that doesn’t change the fact that a man found guilty by a party disciplinary process has the right to appeal. It doesn’t matter how villainous that person is.”

Carlisle said: ‘It would have been easier to hang Prince than Jack the Ripper, but the ANC screwed it up so badly. We could see it coming to us like a charging elephant. I struggled for three years to get him fired, but the ANC backed him no matter what — until the SABC footage came to light. That was impossible to defend.”

The DA’s Botha insisted that his party’s coalition with Icosa ‘exists only because Prince resigned. Now that he has been reinstated, we have met Icosa and clearly stated that we are still committed to a coalition up to 2009 and perhaps beyond that, but that we have to find a solution to the Truman Prince problem.”