Cape Town - A DA councillor was on Thursday expelled from the city’s council meeting for brandishing a T-shirt with the words “Ses’khona endorses ANC”.
Andile Dube leapt up during the question session of the full council meeting, waving the yellow T-shirt which also had an image of Jacob Zuma and the words “vote ANC”.
DA councillors tried to get Dube to take his seat, but he insisted on waving the shirt. Speaker Dirk Smit ordered Dube to leave the chamber when he refused to sit down.
Xolani Sotashe, of the ANC, said Dube’s behaviour smacked of “anarchy”.
In her speech, mayor Patricia de Lille referred to recent incidents of public violence, including the setting alight of buses in Nyanga and disruptions on the N2. These actions were “calculated to occur at strategic points and in a particular sequence in order to try and make the city ungovernable.
“They are the extension of politics by other means led by proxy organisations for the opposition in this city and this province”.
De Lille said: “Those who destroy property and lives to advance self-interested political agendas demonstrate neither responsibility nor indeed any of the qualities of leadership.”
Although De Lille did not mention Ses’khona during her speech on Thursday, at the last council meeting she referred to the “ANC-front organisation Ses’khona” and the “central role” it plays in destabilising the city.
Dube said later that Ses’khona was distributing the T-shirts and “one happened to land” in his hands.
He said he felt strongly about the attacks being made on the DA, and the party’s councillors, by Ses’khona.
Andile Lili from Ses’khona said the organisation was not “ashamed” of endorsing the ANC and its president.
“The decision behind endorsing the ANC was made before the elections when the ANC government agreed to give us land, for the poor, which the DA refused to do.”
After the lunch break, Smit said Dube could return to the meeting.
“But there is still the possibility of a disciplinary process,” he said.
Another DA councillor, Joy McCarthy, was also rebuked for making derogatory statements about “people coming from the Eastern Cape to invade thousands of kilometres of land” during a debate about the city’s assets.
Cape Argus