Barring any surprise moves, Helen Zille’s term as premier will end in 2019 and it is time to think about who will replace her, writes Mike Wills.
Cape Town - It is all quiet on the Western Cape front. National politics might be in turmoil, but in our neck of the woods it’s been a case of “as you were” for yet another year. The Zille/De Lille DA axis has now remained undisturbed since June 2011.
The party’s control of Cape Town was further entrenched in the August local elections.
Rising from 135 to 154 seats in council was quite some achievement off a high base.
But the end is nigh for this period of extraordinary political stability in the city.
The premier’s heading off into the sunset in 2019 - unless she pulls a surprise move and departs early - leaving a plum position of power vacant for someone.
But who? It’s extraordinary how little public speculation there’s been about the next occupant of the ghostly Leeuwenhof.
A while back there was a brief burst of reported antipathy from Helen Zille to the prospect of Patricia de Lille replacing her, but little else has been heard. However, you can be sure this is a big topic of festive season conversation among DA operatives at every level.
Whatever the premier thinks, De Lille is the obvious candidate, especially as the Cape Town mayoralty was also Zille’s stepping stone to the position.
De Lille is the same age as Zille and will be 68 in 2019. Maybe that’s not a problem.
She’s younger than Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and only a tad older than Cyril Ramaphosa, and they’ve all been actively seeking very big jobs lately. And she seems to have plenty of gas left in the tank.
After her name, the list gets pretty thin. Maybe DA leader Mmusi Maimane will want to promote a younger rising star with less name recognition, safe in the knowledge the party will retain the Western Cape almost whoever he puts in charge.
The DA received 59 percent in the last provincial ballot and is under no threat from a shambolic ANC in the region.
Thinking of which, Marius Fransman has done his level best during 2016 to ensure his party is out of power in the Cape for decades.
A curious recent missive from one of his supporters began with the old slogan “An injury to one is an injury to all” and Fransman is taking that quite literally - if he’s been injured by the party over serious sexual assault allegations, then he’s going to injure everyone else in retaliation.
In the latest developments, the blustering Fransman says he’s off to court to challenge the ANC’s decisions. He organised a sort of sit-in (including school kids in uniforms) at his own party headquarters and his paranoid trash talking of anyone in ANC authority gets wilder by the week. It also gets weirder.
He recently said acting provincial chairman Khaya Magaxa had attacked him because he “wanted to become relevantâ€.
Clearly that’s an insult in Fransman’s lexicon. Certainly no one could accuse Marius Fransman of ever being relevant to the Western Cape electorate.
* Mike Wills’ column appears in the Cape Argus every Wednesday.
Cape Argus