Judgment reserved in DA councillor AK Elyas’s bid to overturn DA expulsion - IOL

An urgent bid by expelled DA councillor Abdulkader “AK” Elyas to retain his party membership and City of Cape Town council seat is awaiting judgment after the Western Cape High Court reserved its decision on Wednesday. 

Elyas approached the court after the DA terminated his membership over alleged election campaign roles that he maintains were assigned to him by the party itself.

He is also seeking an order preventing the DA from filling his council seat and reinstating him on its proportional representation (PR) candidate list ahead of the November 4 local government elections.

Elyas’s membership was terminated after the DA’s Federal Executive adopted a July finding by the party’s Federal Legal Commission (FLC) that he had breached a disciplinary agreement by serving as Ground War Lead/Manager on the party’s Western Cape campaign team.

In an answering affidavit filed at the Western Cape High Court, DA Federal Council chairperson and Deputy Finance Minister Ashor Sarupen defended the party’s decision to terminate Elyas’s membership.

Sarupen said Elyas had breached a Plea and Penalty Agreement (P&P) he had accepted in 2024 after taking responsibility for misrepresenting his qualifications.

The agreement barred Elyas from holding any elected or non-elected party position, other than that of an ordinary public representative, during his suspension.

Sarupen added that Elyas then breached the P&P agreement by accepting the role of Ground War Lead/Manager of the party's Western Cape campaign team.

"To his credit, the applicant accepted responsibility and agreed to a penalty that was finalised in 2024. However, unfortunately, the applicant failed to comply with the terms of that P&P Agreement. The agreed consequence for breach, which has followed automatically, is the termination of the applicant's membership," the affidavit stated. 

The DA also disputed Elyas’s argument that he could not have breached the agreement because he was appointed to the campaign role rather than elected to it.

"It is not so that the applicant can avoid personal responsibility for taking on this position just because he did not 'stand' or because some members of the DA encouraged him to take the position. It was the applicant's personal responsibility to comply with his plea agreement, in part, because it was not distributed within the Party. The applicant knew he should not take on leadership roles while serving his period of suspended termination. He nonetheless did so, in order to advance his own interests," the affidavit read.

The affidavit also touched on the disciplinary matter that led to the agreement in the first place.

Sarupen said the party discovered that Elyas had made false claims about his qualifications between 2019 and 2023. "These false claims included that he was a qualified medical doctor and/or a qualified actuary and/or had special expertise in 'fintech among other representations."

The DA alleges that these representations were made on several occasions to advance Elyas’s standing within the party, including during the 2019 national and provincial elections, the 2021 local government elections and the 2024 national and provincial elections. 

Elyas, however, maintains that the termination of his membership was unlawful and based on what he described in his court papers as a “patently wrong” finding by the FLC.

He argues that his campaign responsibilities were an appointment rather than a formal party position, and that “Ground War Lead/Manager” is not an official DA position.

In his application, Elyas says that without the FLC’s finding, he would have remained a DA member and councillor and would have been eligible for re-election in the November elections.

The court reserved judgment in the matter.

Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said Elyas would have to prove that the alleged misrepresentation of his qualifications should not have a bearing on his expulsion.

“He would have to prove that such a misrepresentation should have no bearing on his expulsion. That may prove to be a tall order,” he said.

“The courts are there to resolve disputes. I sense that politicians approach the courts as the last resort because they would have either exhausted the internal processes or do not have confidence in the internal processes of their parties,” Seepe added.