MARAIS BOWS OUT IN STYLE.

Cape Town's controversial mayor Peter Marais was on Wednesday preparing to bow out in style after a drama-packed day which saw him resign only hours after being reinstated. In a judgment slamming the Democratic Alliance for denying Marais "the most basic of rights" when it sacked him, the Cape High Court ordered he be given back both his party membership and the mayoral chain. However, at a packed lunchtime media conference from behind his mayoral desk -- which despite his enforced absence still had his family photographs arranged on it -- Marais announced he was quitting. He said his resignation would take effect at midnight, and that he intended to be chauffeured in style to the very end. "I'm going home in a mayoral car because I'm mayor of this city till 12 midnight tonight, and there's nothing anybody can do about it," he said. He would also have a photograph taken in his mayoral chain for the last time. Marais, who in any case faced being ousted in a no-confidence vote at the next council meeting, said that if he stayed on as DA mayor he would have had to "turn my back on the poor, drop my moral principles and swear allegiance to the DA". "I have therefore decided to resign as mayor and resign as member of the DA as from midnight tonight, and to remain loyal to the New National Party and its leader. "I am going back to the people. I will still be their champion." Marais was expelled from the DA and lost the mayoral chain last month after party leader Tony Leon complained he had harmed the DA's public image and failed to lead the party properly at city level. Marais said Wednesday's court judgment had exposed Leon as an insecure, incompetent leader, who hid behind spin-doctors and a "liberal dosage of arrogance". "The DA is a party of rich people who are looking for a few Hotnots to win the election," he said. However, DA acting leader Joe Seremane said Marais had a propensity for playing the race card and for character assassination, and would clearly be very at home with the African National Congress. DA national management committee (NMC) chairman James Selfe said Marais' resignation was an implicit admission that he was not the right person to be mayor of Cape Town. He said the NNP had nowhere to go, and would soon be extinct. "Meanwhile, the DA will elect a new mayor and the Cape Town City Council can get back to work and provide the people of Cape Town with ...