Quinton Mtyala and
Sandiso Phaliso
THREE prominent DA members from its powerful Atlantis-Durbanville constituency have dumped the party for the ANC, citing racism.
Along with Durbanville, the area also includes Fisantekraal, with the DA in charge of all three ward seats.
The party’s Cape Town Metro chairperson Shaun August last night dismissed the defection of its proportional representative councillor and Durbanville constituency chairperson Cyril Mack, his son Grant Mack and Danny Bolton, who serves as secretary for the constituency.
“The DA is aware of Councillor Mack signing up membership to the minority party in the Western Cape.
“He has left the most diverse, fastest growing and most inclusive party in South Africa,” said August.
Instead of damaging the party’s prospects, August predicted that the DA was set to win next year’s local government elections to increase its majority in Cape Town.
This is not the first time the senior Mack has jumped parties, he first dumped the DA for the Independent Democrats in 2010, but within months he was back, following his leader Patricia de Lille.
Grant, who is a UWC student, was active in the DA Student Organisation (Daso) and the party’s youth wing, said he had joined the ANC not because of his father, but because he was inspired by past leaders of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle.
“I decided to join the ANC because of the unfairness I personally experienced and felt in the DA. The policies that they present…is not true, and is not fitted to us as young people (sic),” he said.
Yesterday, all three symbolically tossed their blue DA T-shirts in a bin, in exchange for ANC ones – handed to them by the party’s provincial chairperson Marius Fransman – and membership forms which they signed from ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs.
The older Mack said his dissatisfaction with the DA started with preparations for next year’s local government elections.
He insisted that coloured and black activists were doing all the work for the DA, and ensuring the party’s continued electoral support in their communities.
Cyril claimed most of those working in the party’s Cape Town national head office remained mostly “white females and youth”.
And when they complained to the DA’s Cape Town Metro leadership, they were dismissed.
“We as (DA) activists on the streets, we never got (given) an opportunity,” said Mack.
He said he had never imagined that he would be joining the ANC. “I thought the DA was the house, and the place… they’ve got that diversity thing that they preach. But they don’t live it.”