The DA is keeping the result of a lie-detector test that its Tshwane councillors were subjected to a closely guarded secret following the election as mayor the now disgraced weekend special Dr Murunwa Makwarela.
Makwarela emerged as a surprise mayor last week following an ANC and EFF-led offensive that sent shockwaves within the DA-led multi-party alliance that believed numbers were on their side.
As a result of the surprise, the DA and its coalition partners such as ActionSA subjected their councilors to a polygraph test to establish who were the “traitors” from within their ranks who voted for Makwarela.
The Sunday World was this week informed that former mayor Randall Williams failed the test.
But Gauteng DA provincial chair Fred Nel was quick to pour cold water on the claims because “I am the only person who has the results”.
According to Nel, it was the resolution of the DA caucus in Tshwane that they took independently. This was to prove that the councilors who turned rogue were not from their ranks.
“I am the only person who knows the results of the polygraph. All DA councilors passed the test,” said Nel.
“The caucus wanted to prove that they did vote in accordance with the instruction and generate the necessary trust from within the coalition partnership. This was a request from our caucus that was not imposed on them by the DA because we do not do that. But we allowed it because it was a unanimous request.”
Nel believes that there is no trust deficit within the DA caucus in Tshwane despite the extraordinary measure to go for a polygraph.
If there were trust issues, he charged, some DA councilors “would have opposed the proposition of having these tests done”.
Added Nel: “My experience of the Tshwane caucus of the DA is that they stuck together and were united like never before in the face of all of this drama that we have seen in the past week.”
Nel said he was suspecting that rumours of Williams failing the test were a ploy by the DA opponents to sow divisions and defocus them.
Asked who were the councilors that defied the DA-led multi-party coalition that was dethroned, Nel said all would be revealed once all parties within that alliance had done individual party lie-detector tests.
“The other parties will have to confirm what they found,” he said.
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