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Helen Zille discusses the current state of politics in Cape Town and shares her thoughts on the concept of floor crossing in general.
Helen Zille discusses the current state of politics in Cape Town and shares her thoughts on the concept of floor crossing in general.
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4 Comments
Nonsense Ubuntu, what you want is what Richard Dyantyi tried and failed to do. Helen has every right under the constitution and local government legislation to form a coalition government in Cape Town of parties that support her goal of good governance, and transparent decisionmaking that has been the hallmark of her administration. The ANC doesn't want to accept defeat at the polls when it lost the municipal poll to the DA.
The multi-party government (MPG) coalition you lead should be disbanded and replaced by one consisting of the DA, ANC and ID as was agreed by the DA, ANC and ID in the following Western Cape municipalities that are the forerunners: Breede Valley, Cape Winelands District, Overberg District, Oudtshoorn, Eden District, Beaufort West, Laingsburg, Prince Albert, Central Karoo District.
Dear Ubuntu<br><br>
Thank you for being forthright about your point of view.When it comes to us taking away sub-councils from the ANC, you should note the following facts.<br><br>1) The agreement with Minister Mufamadi covered the previous council as constituted after the elections up until the floor-crossing. After the floor-crossing, the council is reconstituted, and a new set of rules apply for the establishment of sub-councils. The ANC changed the law to allow this. The Municipal Structures Act says that after an election, sub-councils have to be made up of the same ratio of proportional representative (PR) councillors as the ward councillors included in a sub-council. So if there are 5 wards in a sub-council, and 3 of the ward councillors are DA, 1 ID, and 1 ANC, then there has to be 3 DA, 1 ID and 1 ANC PR councillor as well. However, the ANC introduced a new rule in the Municipal Structures Act which says that after a floor-crossing, PR councillors can be distributed much more freely around sub-councils. This enabled the ANC in 2002 to take 16 sub-councils held by the DA and re-arrange them into 20 all held by the ANC.<br><br>2) The ANC therefore needs to learn that when it makes laws, it must make these laws not simply to benefit itself in the short-term, but make them in such a way that when it is not in power, it will also be protected. Perhaps the ANC will now consider scrapping this law, and hopefully floor-crossing in its current form as well.The same applies with the Executive Mayoral system – the ANC introduced the Executive Mayoral system when they were in power. They were happy with it. But when they lost they wanted the Executive Committee system back. MEC Dyantyi tried to bring that system back in an effort to unseat the Multi-Party Government. The ANC also attacked the DA because we had stated our preference for the Executive Committee System ahead of the elections. However, this would have cost us our position. Our number 1 mandate from the voters is to provide an alternative to the ANC, and this must take precedence over the issue of the Executive Mayoral system versus the Executive Committee system. Finally, I would like to point out that the ANC is not excluded from government. The opposition is a critical part of the government in a democracy – both as a watchdog and as an alternative source of critical input. The DA fulfils this role in parliament, and we are proud of what we do. The ANC needs to learn to do the same in Cape Town.<br><br>HZ
Now that you have broken your promise not to bribe people to cross the floor to the DA, I call on the ID and the ACDP, who are not happy with the DA's latest powergrab to break up the so called "multiparty" coalition government. It is possible for there to be a governing coalition led by the ANC-ID-ACDP-AMP that can elect a new NON-executive mayor under an executive committee system that should have 5 DA, 4 ANC and 1 ID members.
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