Despite an overwhelming win in the High Court, Patricia de Lille's battle with the DA is far from over.
The High Court in Cape Town on Wednesday ruled that the DA's termination of the Cape Town mayor's party membership was illegal and invalid. This effectively means that De Lille's membership has been reinstated.
But the DA has not given up yet, and will bring a motion of no confidence in De Lille in the Cape Town city council.
De Lille's party reinstatement also means that she is susceptible to the party's internal disciplinary processes.
Speaking to HuffPost, the party's deputy federal executive chairperson Natasha Mazzone said a motion of no confidence in De Lille as mayor will be tabled.
"It will be a motion brought before council and the council will have to decide when that will be scheduled. Certainly, when you've lost the confidence of 75 percent of your own caucus it is an untenable situation in which you are operating and certainly not healthy for the city of Cape Town," Mazzone said.
"I am just more concerned about what happens within the DA. A very stern instruction has gone through to all DA councillors that service delivery remains the top priority."
Mazzone said all disciplinary processes against De Lille will now commence.
"De Lille is a member of the DA again. She's been reinstated as a member of the DA. As such, she is subject to all DA disciplinary processes. Therefore, all those disciplinary hearings pending against her are reinstated, and she will have to face disciplinary hearings that she was going to before," Mazzone said.
"We do maintain that we followed process, that's why we would like to study the judgement very carefully and see where the judges felt that we erred. We think that there might have been a misunderstanding in the way that the judgement was put together in terms of our internal processes."