Patricia de Lille will continue her lifelong fight for a just, fair and caring society by forming an as yet unnamed political party, the former mayor of Cape Town announced on Sunday.
Bringing speculation about her future ever since she resigned as mayor and DA member on October 31 on end, she said the new party’s name and policy positions will be announced in two weeks, while it will be officially launched in January next year before it contests the elections in every province.
“I’ve spent my entire life fighting for a society that is just, fair and caring and will not rest until that is achieved,” she said.
“Today, I’m inviting all South Africans who are in search of something new that will disrupt our current political system to join me.
WATCH: Patricia de Lille talks about her future and her journey as Cape Town mayor
Her battle with the DA was like an abusive relationship, Patricia de Lille says. And the best decision when caught in such a situation is to walk away, “because it’s not going to change”.
“I am making a call for you to do something good. To join me in doing something good for our country.
“When good people do nothing, evil prospers,” she said.
De Lille’s resignation as mayor was the culmination of 18 months of acrimony between her and the DA – that party she joined when it merged with the ID, which she founded and led, in 2010. She was accused of turning a blind eye to corruption and poor management, and she said a “cabal” went after her when she started to address apartheid’s spatial planning.
De Lille spent some time in her speech on Sunday in the Sun Square Hotel in the Cape Town city bowl speaking about what she called her “abusive relationship” with the DA, but insists she is not bitter. She did however, say if anybody has a go at her, she will have a go at them too.
“It became clear that the project Helen Zille [former DA leader, current Western Cape leader] and I agreed on in 2010, to create a viable alternative to the ANC, was no longer underpinned by the values I believed in and on which the DA campaigned,” she said.
“Through its conduct, the DA exposed to me that they are not a party that truly believes in constitutionalism and the rule of law, they do not believe in truth, they do not believe in redress and they do not believe their own four core values of freedom, fairness, opportunity and diversity.
“That said, one of the lessons Tata Madiba taught me after his 27 years of incarceration is that if he can forgive his oppressors, I can also forgive my oppressors. I say: ‘God, forgive the fools, they know not what they are doing’.”
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