Proposal to strip opponents of power in Cape Town

Claire Nullis

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Cape Town — seat of South Africa’s parliament and jewel in its tourism crown — is in the grips of an ugly struggle for power that has prompted wider fears for the future of the country’s hard-won democracy.

When Mayor Helen Zille’s Democratic Alliance narrowly won local elections last March, it was the first municipal council to slip out of the hands of the African National Congress, which has controlled the national government since apartheid ended in 1994. But now ANC officials are trying to use the power they wield in the province that includes Cape Town to effectively hand the city back to the ANC.

“We will not lie down like doormats and enable the ANC to take back without a single bit of resistance the only major city where they lost,” a furious Zille told journalists earlier this week. Her party has said it will take its fight to the courts.

The proposal made by Richard Dyantyi, the ANC’s provincial minister responsible for local government, would replace the current strong mayor system with a committee system. Dyantyi has made the proposal only for Cape Town and, while he is seeking public comment on it, he could push it through with a directive.

Although the Democratic Alliance has a narrow majority in Cape Town itself, the provincial government is ANC led.

Dyantyi said he wants “an inclusive government in the city that works for all communities equally.”

Under the proposed committee system, the two biggest parties, the Democratic Alliance and the ANC, would each get four seats and the smaller Independent Democrats would get two. Six lesser known parties, who joined with Zille to give the Democratic Alliance led coalition control of 106 of 210 of the city council seats, would be squeezed out.

The DA argues the proposal for Cape Town sends the message that the ANC cannot accept the results of democratic elections and serve in opposition.

“The ANC’s aim is unfettered power; its terrain is any site of rival authority; its victims are the voters of South Africa,” DA leader Tony Leon said in a statement Friday.

The ANC’s dominance has led to fears one-party rule could emerge in South Africa. But ANC leaders repeatedly pledge their commitment to democracy and the party’s internal division may provide a check on any dictatorial ambitions.

In an example of how political fortunes can changes minds, the ANC ended committee rule and introduced the mayoral system in Cape Town in 2002 when it held a narrow majority of votes. The DA itself had supported the committee system before it won its narrow majority in Cape Town.

Jonathan Faull, political analyst with the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, said the committee system could work if the major parties were willing to cooperate with each other.

“But if the committee becomes the site of political contest and party political imperatives, then it could well result in deadlock,” he said.

Critics of Dyantyi’s proposal include former President F.W. De Klerk’s Foundation Center For Constitutional Rights, which pointed out no similar proposals had been made for committee rule in all the remaining cities with ANC mayors.

There is concern that Cape Town, the tourist hub of South Africa, may become mired in political infighting, hampering efforts to improve infrastructure and build a new soccer stadium ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

Dyantyi said part of the reason he wants the change for Cape Town is “the importance of the 2010 Soccer World Cup for the city and the need for stability in the lead-up to this important event for the city, the province, the country and the continent.”

Cape Town wants to host the opening match and a semifinal.

Of all South Africa’s cities, Cape Town is the most politically complex. The mixed race community — which has shifting allegiances — accounts for nearly half of the population. Blacks, the majority elsewhere in the country and solidly behind the ANC, form nearly 30 percent and whites just under 20 percent.

Since she took office, Zille has impressed many observers with her no-nonsense approach to problems like the 400,000-family waiting list for housing and the chronic lack of services in the sprawling townships around the city, as well as her determination to collect massive outstanding debts.

She has declared war on corruption, which plagued the administration of her predecessor Nomaindia Mfeketo, launched audits into contracts handed out by Mfeketo and her top managers. She also has won praise for trying to restore order to the city’s chaotic administration.

Independent Cape Town alderman Gordon Oliver wrote in an open letter to Dyantyi published in the Cape Times on Friday that the plan that could result in her ouster “is politically unwise, morally unjust and totally unnecessary.”

Oliver, who was mayor from 1989 to 1991 and a leading figure in anti-apartheid protests, added: “Your proposal ... is not only unnecessary but politically damaging to your party and to our fledgling and fragile democracy.”

(Associated Press)