By Linda Daniels and Anel Powell
The Independent Democrats (ID) are to launch a motion at the Cape Town council's next full sitting to replace the executive mayoral system with an executive committee based on the proportional support received by political parties.
It is a move the African National Congress says it will support, given that this would give it representation on the committee.
ID leader Patricia de Lille said that if the DA did not agree to the executive committee system by March 29, her party would go ahead with the motion which, if it succeeded, would wrest decision-making authority from executive mayor Helen Zille.
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| 'It's impossible for us to accept this offer' |
Switching to the executive committee system - a move that would have to be ratified by MEC for Local Government Richard Dyantyi - would reduce Zille's role to that of a ceremonial mayor.
Since Zille's election last week, the DA has been trying to get the ID to join its multiparty forum which, with 106 seats, holds a fragile majority in the 210-seat council.
But talks have deadlocked over, for example, the ID's insistence that the ANC come on board in a collective executive committee system.
"This would fundamentally break our commitment to the other parties," DA spokesperson Ryan Coetzee said. "It's impossible for us to accept this offer."
The multiparty forum, comprising the ACDP and six smaller parties, was "tired of the ID's negotiations in bad faith", Coetzee said.
| 'We are interested in stability' |
The DA gave the ID until midnight to make a decision.
But ID national leader De Lille said late on Wednesday: "The 12 o'clock deadline is not for us. We are still in discussions."
De Lille denied that her party had been in negotiations with the ANC about calling for a vote of no confidence in the administration of Cape Town, saying her party accepted that Zille had been democratically elected.
De Lille said talks with the ANC were "only to pursue the issue of the collective executive system and nothing else".
"If everything else fails, the ID will remain in opposition. We will consider everything on an issue by issue basis."
Zille said it was vital that the ID come on board.
"We are interested in stability and we don't want a vote of no confidence that would take our eye off the ball of service delivery," she said.
The ANC's provincial secretary general, Mcebesi Skwatsha, has confirmed that it would support an ID motion proposing a switch to an executive committee system.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on March 23, 2006
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