WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-10-05 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Lindsay Dentlinger
Another showdown is looming between the DA-led city government and the ANC, as the council’s biggest opposition party considers mounting a legal challenge to the way the council has been reconstituted after the floor crossing.
If found to have been done incorrectly, it could have major implications for any decisions taken by the mayor and the council since then.
“We plan to take further steps to ensure our rights are upheld.
| ‘We plan to take further steps to ensure our rights are upheld’ |
“We are not going to allow the matter to rest there.
“We believe it is unconstitutional,” said ANC chief whip Peter Gabriel.
“It’s a serious matter if the council is not reconstituted properly.”
The ANC was distancing itself from the reconstitution of council on Wednesday.
The party petitioned Speaker Dirk Smit to call another meeting of the council to re-elect the mayor, deputy mayor and speaker.
| ‘The sub-councils have deliberately been decided to exclude naturally elected leaders’ |
Gabriel said that according to the ANC’s interpretation of the constitution, this needed to happen after a floor crossing.
Smit rejected the motion, saying the council was following correct procedure.
But the ANC’s city caucus has vowed not to take the matter lying down and has hinted at pursuing legal avenues to challenge the reconstitution of council.
The ANC was dealt a surprising blow on Wednesday, with the DA using a by-law promulgated by the ANC during the previous floor crossing and which allows for sub-councils to be constituted differently after a walk-over period than after an election, to oust them from power in several areas in the metro where they have the majority support base.
The ANC has effectively been stripped of any significant power at the grassroots level with the removal of five of the seven sub-council chairs it held before the floor crossing.
DA proportional representative councillors have now been shuffled around in such a way that the DA will take control of 15 sub-councils and of its coalition partners, the ID will take over four and the ACDP maintain two.
The ANC will be left in control of only two sub-councils – in Khayelitsha and Philippi.
The move strengthens the DA’s position to muster support in the run-up to the 2009 local government elections as sub-councils are the key to raising community issues with the council and are responsible for overseeing service delivery in the area.
The DA is also at loggerheads with the ACDP over control of the deputy mayor post.
Diluting the ANC’s power in the city effectively also nullifies an agreement Mayor Helen Zille reached with Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi a year ago.
According to the agreement, she would create two new sub-councils and allow them to be chaired by the ANC to stave off Local Government MEC Richard Dyantyi scrapping the mayoral committee system in the city.
Now the ANC have even less power than it had before the agreement.
Gabriel said the move was aimed at “keeping blacks out of the city”.
“We expected her to respect and honour that agreement. That agreement was reached in good faith,” he said.
Although ward councillors cannot be shifted to a subcouncil other than in an area they represent, the DA has been able to shuffle its proportional representative councillors to give it control in more sub-councils.
After an election, the law dictates that sub-councils must reflect the support parties received in the area.
However, after a floor-crossing, sub-councils need only to reasonably reflect the ruling majority of the council.
Gabriel said the new sub-council compositions would not reflect the electorate in many areas.
“We don’t think it is in the interest of the communities.
“The sub-councils have deliberately been decided to exclude naturally elected leaders,” he said.
The ANC said Zille was acting under pressure from her own caucus to offer them more positions of power, given that their smaller coalition partners hold mayoral committee and subcouncil positions, in some cases for only contributing one seat to the coalition.
Zille has not denied this, saying that her caucus was under-represented in positions of power considering that it held 95 seats in a 210-seat council.
She said she had to take sub-councils away from the ANC to give to the ID.
The ID has come out tops after the reconstitution of the council, gaining three more subcouncil chairs in addition to the one in Athlone it held before the floor crossing.
They will now be in control of the sub-councils in Gugulethu and the two in the Delft-Kuils River areas, all previously under control of the ANC.