Johannesburg - Problems are emerging in the four month-old GOOD party after national chairwoman Nthabiseng Lephoko resigned, accusing party leader Patricia de Lille of choosing Shaun August over her for an MP position.
Lephoko said she handed her resignation to De Lille on Monday.
"Miss De Lille makes her own decisions regarding who gets to be placed where and how...promises were made...I was told not to worry about not being elected [to a position] and I have proof of that. We were led to believe that this was a woman-led organisation, but now we have two gentlemen who are leading," she told SABC news channel.
De Lille's party, formed after she left the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the mayorship of Cape Town last year, received over 70,000 votes in the May 8 general elections, securing two seats in the National Assembly and one in the Western Cape legislature. De Lille will return to the National Assembly along with former City of Cape Town DA chief whip Shaun August.
She had served for almost 16 years between 1994 to 2010 for the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and later her first party, the Independent Democrats which subsequently merged with the DA.
August is GOOD's national organiser. He stepped down from the DA council in support of De Lille last year along with Brett Herron. Now GOOD secretary general, Herron will take up his new party's seat in the Western Cape legislature.
Lephoko accused the party of leaving her out from important party decisions.
"Personally, I thought that I was being sidelined, important things were not discussed with me...most of the time decisions were made without me. I was not included in the decision making."
The party said it was surprised by her reasons for leaving as she did not raise them with its leadership.