AEB leader going to court

2003-02-08 17:50

Pretoria - Afrikanereenheidsbeweging (AEB) leader Cassie Aucamp on Saturday afternoon said he would fight a decision by party members to sack him as member and its sole MP.

He told Sapa he had heard from media reports that the party's executive committee (Hoofraadsvergadering) had suspended his membership and that he could therefore lose his seat in Parliament.

Aucamp said that while he would fight the decision in the Pretoria High Court he wanted to place it on record that the meeting suspending him was not duly constituted in terms of the party's constitution.

"This action has been taken by a splinter group of unreconstructed conservatives from the far right of the political spectrum who seem determined to remove me from office - but this caucus has no legitimacy or legal standing in terms of the party's own constitution and therefore any decisions they take are illegitimate," he said.

In a later statement he said the splinter group was made up of former Conservative Party (CP) members who wanted to abuse the AEB for their own, narrow sectarian purposes.

Adding tartly that it was a fresh breeze through South African politics for someone to be suspended by his party on a matter of principle, rather than for reason of scandal, Aucamp said the faction would not succeed in derailing his move into the non-racial but pro-Afrikaans Nasionale Aksie (National Action) once floor-crossing legislation for MPs was signed into law.

- SAPA