DA won't be deterred by ANC
2009-05-29 22:02
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Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance will not be deterred by "the ANC's plans" to disempower it through an orchestrated campaign to make the Western Cape "ungovernable", Premier Helen Zille said on Friday.
"We have been through this all before and survived. Upset by, and unable to accept, its defeat at the polls on 22 April, the ANC is trying to undermine the Western Cape government.
"It did the same thing when it lost control of the City of Cape Town in 2006," she wrote in her weekly newsletter as leader of the Democratic Alliance.
"Even so, we will continue to point out and loudly condemn the attempts to dislodge us from power or to reduce our functions, which we have a legitimate mandate to fulfill," she said.
Some of those moves came dressed in legal garb, and they took the form of greater centralisation of power.
"In fact, just three weeks into Jacob Zuma's presidency, there are disturbing signs that one of the most destructive trends of [former president] Thabo Mbeki's reign - towards the centralisation of power - is being revived and intensified," Zille said.
That was ironic, given that one of the main reasons for the deep anger and resentment directed towards Mbeki by Zuma's faction, that led to Mbeki's defeat at Polokwane and eventual recall as president, was Mbeki's sustained efforts to centralise power - both in the ANC and the state.
- SAPA