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Thread: Assasination politics?

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Assasination politics?

    Character assasination is not uncommon in democracies, but this is ridiculous.

    Now who would want to assasinate a UDM politician in democratic South Africa. From M&G here.
    Cape Town's mayoral committee member for safety and security, Dumisani Ximbi, was rushed out of a public meeting last week after a warning of a plot to assassinate him, his office said on Wednesday.

    Ximbi's spokesperson Wesley Douglas said the incident happened on Thursday evening, but was kept under wraps until the city's VIP protection unit had completed a report.

    That report had been finished, and a complaint would now be laid with the South African Police Service, he said.

    The city said in a statement that security was being stepped up around the city's multiparty government following the incident.

    It said the warning of an "imminent attack" came from a senior metro police officer as Ximbi, who is Western Cape chairperson of the United Democratic Movement (UDM), was addressing a community meeting in Khayelitsha.

    "I was rushed away just in time," the statement quoted Ximbi as saying. "The information was given by a reliable informant and had included the description of the men who were to carry out the attack and their vehicles.

    "As I left, those vehicles pulled up at the hall."

    Douglas said the identity of the attackers was not yet known, but that the incident was clearly politically motivated.

    Ximbi said he was not accusing any other political party over the incident.

    The Democratic Alliance leads a fragile alliance of several parties, including the UDM, in the city. The African National Congress is the opposition in the council.

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    Hi Dave

    Living in the Mother City, I can say that we hear a lot in the local papers that don't end up in the papers North (editorial censorship?) or in the TV news.

    The DA certainly have their work cut out for them. Helen Zille reduced the mayor's "personal staff" from 120 to 18, saving the city over R3million a year. Now what did the ANC mayor need 120 people for? End result: ANC was embarressed.

    Her fiasco with the 2010 stadium - the ANC plot was for the City of Cape Town to foot the R2.5 billion bill for the stadium, but the Football Association gets all the ticket earnings. At that price, Helen felt the money could be spent better elsewhere (infrastructure, housing), but she was prepared to loan the money to the Football Association. Majority of voters in Cape Town have always been DA supporters - the ANC always gets the city/province during a floor-crossing when they bait people to cross the floor. Voters were upset with the ANC plan for the stadium. End Result: ANC embarressed.

    Service delivery and infrastructure upgrade have improved noticibly since March, even with the DA being hamstrung by the ANC and ID continually finding reasons to take Helen Zille to court.

    I think the scary thing is that when the DA is in power in the city, you can feel "hope" on the streets - policing is more visible. When the ANC is in power, everything seems to degrade rapidly as people set up "commissions of enquiry" for every decision that needs to be made.

    I'm not saying that Helen Zille is perfect. Nor is the DA (can anyone say Gerald Morkel and Mr Marais?) But the DA have certainly chosen a winner with Helen Zille. When she was in charge of education in the Western Cape - things got done - the same can be said for her running of the city.

    The problem the ANC have is that this is a chalk-and-cheese province. Just before an election the townships "swell" with eastern capers moving into the province, making them elligible to vote ANC. After the elections, they seem to migrate back to the Easten Cape. Such things are noticible to the rest of us.

    The ANC is hellbent on discrediting the DA led alliance - if not an assissination, then the threat of an assissination.

    We live in interesting times ...

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    This story on IOL relates to an ANC move to use provincial powers to force proportional representation on committees in Cape Town.

    The ANC in the province is planning to strip Cape Town mayor, Helen Zille, of her executive powers and replace the mayoral committee with a multiparty executive committee.

    This comes six months after the DA-led coalition took control of the city, relegating the ANC to the opposition benches. Under the Municipal Structures Act, the MEC, Richard Dyantyi, has the power to amend the form of governance for any municipality in the province.

    If the DA coalition holds, it will have a majority on an executive committee, but the mayoral position will become ceremonial, with no real powers. Some of the smaller parties in the DA-led coalition would lose all their influence.
    The question was asked on MyADSL here.:
    Didn't we read the other day about how well Zille was doing? What possible excuse can these morons come up with to make such a change?
    And my response:

    That is exactly why the coalition must be stopped. The ANC cannot allow a situation arise where it becomes clear that another party or parties could do a better job than they do.
    Last edited by Dave A; 14-Sep-06 at 10:52 AM.

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