The row that just won’t quit has resurfaced over the past seven days. Patricia de Lille and the DA have renewed hostilities like it’s 2018 all over again. Aunty Pat has asked the Western Cape High Court to launch an interdict, preventing her former party from “spreading lies” about her.

The former mayor of Cape Town had an almighty fall-out with the DA at the start of last year, resulting in both them and de Lille heading to court more times than a sought-after divorce lawyer. Ironically, their time together was to end like a broken marriage, with PDL quitting the party last October.

Patricia de Lille vs the DA: What’s going off this time?

She then formed her own political party, with the “Good” movement. But if you thought that meant these two would be burying the hatchet, you’d be sadly mistaken. Call centre workers campaigning for the DA are believed to have been fed a script which claims Patricia de Lille was forced to quit over corruption allegations.

That’s not entirely true. While her ex-party is adamant she was implicated beyond reproach in the now-infamous Bowman’s report, de Lille did actually walk away from her position without being charged for anything.

Why de Lille and the DA are at loggerheads

Craig Kesson was the executive director in de Lille’s office, and he submitted an affidavit which was filled with allegations directed towards the mayor.

It was found that the City Manager Melissa Whitehead had, on a number of occasions, tried to influence the procurement process together with the former City Manager, Achmat Ebrahim. De Lille has denied any involvement with this though, and has vowed to make the DA eat their words in court:

“The DA has refused to apologise to me. They have reviewed an IEC application [to apologise to de Lille] and they seek to continue their malicious lies against me. I will not stand for it.”

“The DA has the right to apply to review the IEC decision but they do not have the right to continue to make false statements about me. They are doing this with the intention of influencing the voters choice and the outcome of the election.”

– Patricia de Lille

South Africans go to the polls on Wednesday 8 May, and the DA face a battle to keep hold of the Western Cape. It’s conceivable that the party will lose a significant number of votes to Patricia de Lille and Good, and their majority in the province could shrink from the 59% recorded in 2014.

(Source: The South African)