DA insists De Lille was fired, calls her court challenge ‘publicity seeking’

In a statement on Tuesday evening, the DA dismissed the latest legal bid against them from former party member Patricia de Lille as a publicity stunt.

The now leader of Good, De Lille, said on Monday she was seeking relief in the High Court in Cape Town in a bid to stop her former political home, the DA, from peddling lies about her.

Last week, the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) ordered the DA to apologise to De Lille, setting a deadline of three days for the party to do so publicly, for telling potential voters during telecanvassing ahead of the May 8 elections that De Lille was fired from her position as Cape Town mayor.

De Lille resigned from her position last year following a protracted legal battle with the DA.

The DA said it would not apologise as it believed the IEC overstepped and that only a court could order it to apologise.

“The DA has a right to apply to review the IEC decision but they do not have the right to continue to make false statements about me,” De Lille said in a statement.

“My lawyers have requested the DA to give me an undertaking to stop using their false script, saying that they ‘fired me’, at least until a court has determined the finding of the IEC. The DA have unreasonably refused to do so and this forces me to approach the courts, once again.”

The DA’s Mike Moriarty, the party’s principle representative of the party liaison committee on the IEC, said they saw De Lille’s court challenge as “yet more publicity seeking from a person whose flailing election campaign has nothing to offer, other than repeated attacks on the DA”.

“We will not stoop to her level.”

They insisted that the “simple fact” was that De Lille was “in effect” fired from the DA, after three “successful motions of confidence against her by her own caucus”.

“It is fair comment in the political realm to thus describe her departure from the DA in these terms.

“We have already sought a review of the IEC ‘directive’ on the basis that the IEC lacked any legal power to issue such a directive, the inconsistency and a lack of impartiality on the part of the IEC, and because it was wrong to uphold the complaint on its merits.

“Over the course of the past few months, the DA has laid numerous complaints with the IEC where there have been clear prima facie violations by political parties. Despite the gravity of these complaints, they appear to have not received any attention or the requisite urgency.”

They claimed the IEC had not paid sufficient attention to complaint laid against the ANC for inciting violence in Alex for narrow and dangerous electioneering; most recently, a complaint against the ANC and Ace Magashule for offering money for votes in Cape Town over the weekend; a complaint against Faith Mazibuko for using combi courts to win votes; a complaint laid against the ACDP for buying votes using food parcels; and a complaint laid against the ANC and Ebrahim Rasool for making “outrageous false statements” regarding water contracts in the City of Cape Town.

“The IEC has been disturbingly inconsistent and lethargic in dealing with complaints brought before it for urgent investigation that threaten the free and fair status of the upcoming general election.

“The IEC must not allow itself to be used as a political football for Ms De Lille’s naked attempts at relevance in this election.”

– Background reporting, ANA

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