Over the past few days, DA social media trolls have frenziedly sought to rubbish the fact that conservatives in their party consistently blocked my efforts, as executive mayor, to reverse apartheid spatial planning and integrate the City of Cape Town.

The time has come for me to tell the truth about the DA in the city; to reveal the humiliation I felt towards the end of my mayoral term when I realised that those who pull the strings in the party were using me because I am a black woman.

While the party, at national level, endorsed “redress” as one of four commitments for wherever it governed (reconciliation, delivery and diversity being the other three pillars), conservative members of the city caucus used a cocktail of rich ratepayers, environmentalists, and heritage and planning regulations to prevent the development of public spaces for public good – in Clifton, the city centre, Woodstock, Salt River, Hout Bay, Rondebosch, Plumstead…

The conservatives in the party will tell you that there is virtually no available land in Cape Town suitable to accommodate poorer people. They blame the national government for failing to transfer what they do regard as suitable land, the Wingfield and Ysterplaat military bases, to the city. The truth is that while it would be great to develop subsidised housing at Wingfield and Ysterplaat, it is by no means the only land available to the city.

Unpalatable as it is, the truth is that the DA-led City of Cape Town does not believe that integration is a priority. If it did, it would begin to bring coloured and black Capetonians who were forcefully removed under apartheid back into the city and its suburbs. Its councillors wouldn’t issue calls to stop housing in Table View to avoid it looking like “Khayelitsha by the sea”.

 It’s not a question of resettling everyone presently living on the Cape Flats in Claremont, Durbanville, Table View or Tokai. It is a question of acknowledging the importance of re-imaging spatial planning and actually beginning to undo the social ravages of the past rather than simply talking about it.

I have spent much of the past two years untangling myself from a web of scurrilous and false allegations of impropriety levelled against me by conservative members of the DA caucus. I have been forced to seek the assistance of the courts to defend myself, and the courts have found in my favour every time.

The real issues I had with the DA had nothing to do with governance. The city obtained unqualified audits every year during my term as mayor, including four straight clean audits, which no other city administration in South Africa has ever achieved. The real issues had to do with policy and the rise of the conservatives in the party following Helen Zille’s retirement as leader.

It is fashionable to speak about divisions and factions in the ruling party. They say the ANC is a “broad church”. Although the DA tries to present a more unified public façade, it is radically divided between liberals and former National Party members.

If you don’t believe me, read Helen Zille’s insightful autobiography. Or take a careful look at the composition of the DA’s present Exco in the City of Cape Town. What you’ll see is that the new mayor, and the political heads of planning, finance, transport and the portfolio controlling all the city’s land, are all run by former National Party members.

That is not the DA I joined nine years ago following talks involving the DA, the ID (which I led), the UDM and Cope with the aim of building a strong and sustainable alternative to the ANC. It is not the DA that Helen Zille led, with Lindiwe Mazibuko at the helm of its parliamentary caucus.

It reached the point that I felt I was fronting for a conservative cabal intent on using their numerical advantage in the caucus to outvote me and like-minded colleagues and block all efforts to transform a city still fundamentally constructed on apartheid lines.

Last week I was contacted by concerned leaders in the Imizamo Yethu informal settlement, in Hout Bay, asking if there was anything I could do to unblock the development of temporary housing on the so-called Triangle Site site earmarked for the purpose so that bulk services could be installed. The project was meant to be complete in mid-February but has stalled after objections from neighbouring ratepayers.

The matter has gone to court but has been subjected to several delays, some requested by the city. Imizamo Yethu’s leaders are worried that the community’s patience is running very thin. They have been fighting for the right to live in peace and dignity in the Hout Bay valley for more than 30 years.

While there were projects undertaken during my tenure in the city of which I am proud, Hout Bay was not the only area where our efforts to integrate communities were resisted.

To have continued smiling in my DA T-shirt, while drawing a handsome salary, would have been dishonest to the people with whom I have worked since my trade union days, and to myself.

I am a social democrat who believes that a capitalist system skewed towards social justice is the only sustainable solution to fixing the ravages of our apartheid past. I had to return to something I can believe in. Since establishing GOOD, I have been called by people from all over the country who are disillusioned with the old parties and seeking a new home.

We had to move fast to develop a new party with new policies to contest national and provincial elections in record time. I believe our election manifesto reflects our non-racialism, modernity, political maturity, and the fact that we are not planning to hide from the most difficult issues.

Take our approach to mushrooming informal settlements due to rapid urbanisation, for example. The hidden truth of informal settlements is that more and more residents don’t qualify to receive free housing for the state. This was among the issues that held up the development of the N2 Gateway project in Langa, which was significantly delayed by people who knew that if they moved off the land they were occupying to faraway Delft they would not return to the new homes being built in the area.

GOOD says we recognise this significant issue. We will ensure that municipalities deliver services and the state delivers title deeds for the land for those who are living in informal settlements so that it’s worthwhile for people presently living in shacks to invest in developing dignified homes. These are not thumb-suck ideas or empty election promises – similar mechanisms have been tried, tested and approved in many South American countries.

Another GOOD policy is its position on spatial planning. Simply put, we are saying that public land must be developed for public good, and that poor people must be reintegrated into the fabric of the city. Instead of selling all prime land to developers, some must be reserved for social and affordable housing. We are not saying we must build pondokkies on every open plot in suburbia. We are saying that if we don’t start breaking down the walls that divided us then our children and grandchildren will bear a great burden.

After the elections, GOOD will use the votes entrusted in it to put a handbrake on government corruption and mediocrity while building its structures to take over the government of municipalities in 2021. DM