South Africa

Is anyone else starting to get a bit tired of the ID’s a) blatant political opportunism b) swaggering around like they were the ones who took the most votes in CT c) making statements about “doing things their own way” and then acting like an ANC front organization?  This past week the DA offered the ID the following in an attempt to get it to join the coalition :

 

The DA, which holds the executive mayoral position, said the ID were offered two seats on the mayoral committee, three chairmanships of sub-councils and three positions on the bargaining council, in exchange for a commitment to promote stability and consensus-seeking in the city.

 

In the opinion of this humble blogger - a pretty good deal for the ID in light of what happened last week! So what did the ID when faced with this offer to join the grand coalition and bring stability to Cape Town (for at least the short term) :

 

The Independent Democrats (ID) are to launch a motion at the Cape Town council's next full sitting to replace the executive mayoral system with an executive committee based on the proportional support received by political parties. It is a move the African National Congress says it will support, given that this would give it representation on the committee.

 

ID leader Patricia de Lille said that if the DA did not agree to the executive committee system by March 29, her party would go ahead with the motion which, if it succeeded, would wrest decision-making authority from executive mayor Helen Zille.

 

Short-sighted. Egotistical. Childish

 

I could understand this motion being tabled if it became apparent that Zille was doing a bad job. However, by doing it so shortly after her (Zille's) election, the ID shows that it has nothing to do with helping the City of Cape Town and everything to do with scoring some cheap political points (not to mention sour grapes)!