Cape Town Mayor Denounces 'Power Grab'

Zille Sees S. African Democracy at Risk As Rivals Prepare to Eliminate Her Job

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Political rivals have hurled chairs at her, called her a racist, even accused her of undermining South Africa's plans to host the World Cup in 2010. But what really angers Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille is that after six bruising months in office, she may soon lose her job in what she calls, with characteristic bluntness, "a crude power grab" by the African National Congress.

At stake, says Zille, 55, is not just Cape Town but the future of South Africa's 12-year-old democracy. For Zille is not just the mayor of one of the country's largest cities; she is arguably the most prominent opposition figure in a nation where the ANC controls nearly every other lever of government power, from the presidency on down.

In Western Cape, the ANC-led province that includes Cape Town, the Ministry of Local Government and Housing has proposed changing the city's government from a system with an executive mayor to one run by a 10-member committee.

The move would force the dissolution of Zille's fragile coalition and allow the ANC, in partnership with another party, to control six of the 10 seats on the committee, leaving her as little more than a figurehead. All of South Africa's other largest cities have an executive mayor, and all are controlled by the ANC.

"It's trying by administrative fiat to overturn the outcome of an election. And it's a very, very grave warning about the prospects for democracy in South Africa," said Zille, a former journalist who is white. "It says that the ANC is not prepared to lose an election."

ANC officials say they are merely attempting to make Cape Town's government more inclusive. Zille's party, the Democratic Alliance, won 42 percent of the municipal vote in March; the ANC won 38 percent. A truly representative coalition government, ANC officials said, would include both parties.

They also allege that Zille -- pronounced "Zill-a," giving rise to the ANC's nickname for her, "Godzille" -- has overseen a divisive, polarizing government unconcerned about the poor and determined to purge senior city officials allied with the ANC.

"We are going toward a collision course," said James Ngculu, the ANC's provincial chairman. "The government of Cape Town is not prepared to serve the people of Cape Town. It is prepared to serve a section of the people of Cape Town."

Changing the system of government requires several weeks of public consultation but no vote. If the ANC goes forward, Zille has vowed to fight the move in court.

Underlying these struggles is South Africa's ugly racial history. Cape Town, called the "Mother City" because it's where Dutch explorers founded the first European colony on Africa's southern tip, is regarded by many black South Africans as the country's least integrated city, with bastions of white power and privilege little disturbed by the end of apartheid in 1994.

And though both Zille and Ngculu, who is black, say their battle is not fundamentally about race, voting patterns suggest it is a major factor. Of the 91 members of the Democratic Alliance on the Cape Town city council, only two are black.

The municipal area overseen by Zille includes Cape Town's most elegant neighborhoods, university districts and seaside tourist destinations -- all dominated by whites -- as well as the black-dominated Cape Flats, a dense sprawl of poor, crime-ridden townships, including tens of thousands of decrepit shacks made of scrap wood and sheet metal.