I’ll be back, says DA leader

BRONWYN FOURIE

Tex Collins, outspoken leader of the DA in eThekwini, thorn in the ANC’s side and lover of brimmed hats, flunked the local government elections in spectacular style yesterday as he lost control of his own ward to the ANC.

And even though the jolly man who always has a smart quip at the ready kept his chin up and vowed to be back “like a bad smell”, the laughter of ANC MPL and flamboyant pastor Vusi Dube, the man with whom Collins clashed over his “illegal” tent church earlier this year, could still be heard long after he heard the news.

“When I heard it now, I was thinking ‘yes, yes,’” Dube laughed.

The pair bumped heads in January, when a heated confrontation erupted over the removal of Dube’s tented church in Albert Park. Collins said the church should be moved because not only was it noisy to residents, but it was also using council property and services illegally.

Dube, however, fought back, saying his church was good for the community, and would be moved once permanent land or a building could be purchased.

“I think Tex Collins was bound to lose because he is not focused on what he is supposed to do.

“He wanted the church to go, a place where people gather and build morality. I think somewhere he has lost it as a politician,” he said.

But Collins took it in his stride, humorously retorting that those who found the situation funny “can go pee up a stick”.

Blaming the redrawn ward boundaries for the DA’s loss in the Hillcrest/Waterfall/Forest Hills/Molweni ward, he said the new demarcation was “specially designed by the ANC” to wrestle control away from the DA. Nevertheless, “we gave it a full go”.

“We’ve held that ward since 1994 and the ANC has always desperately wanted it, even in the last election when they also changed the boundaries.”

Collins said he narrowly won his ward in those elections when a few ANC strongholds were brought into the ward. “I still won it, but only by 14 votes. Every night I went to bed blessing those 14 people,” he said light-heartedly.

This election, the Hillcrest High School voting district, a DA stronghold, was moved out of the ward and into the ANC’s ward 8 (Assagay). “That voting district had about 4 000 registered voters in the last election and 85 percent of them voted for the DA. So by moving our stronghold out, we had to make up 3 500 votes. We knew we were going to lose it,” said Collins.

Dube, meanwhile, continued to laugh, saying that Collins’s loss was a “great lesson”.

“Sorry for the old man. You see, if you defy God, you end up losing,” he said.

But Collins hit back, saying he was still going to be a councillor as he was first on the PR list, and that “they are still going to hear all about me”.

“So you see, kiddo, I’m not going anywhere,” he said, enjoying a good chuckle of his own.