GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Did Patricia de Lille send the SMS? Yes or No?

Part of the DA’s case against Patricia de Lille revolves around the allegation that she sent a deeply unethical SMS to water and sanitation mayoral committee member Xanthea Limberg, who sat on the City of Cape Town panel to select the city manager, in September 2016.

The SMS from De Lille supposedly read: "I want to keep Achmat, so please score him highest."

It refers to Achmat Ebrahim, the last candidate to be interviewed and, ultimately, the person who was selected as city manager.

The following evidence for the allegation now exists in the public domain: a screenshot of the SMS in question; an on-the-record confirmation from Xanthea Limberg that she received it ("I received the SMS as I was sitting in the room with the rest of the panel members and the first applicant walked in the room and sat down for the interview"); the date of the SMS — September 28 2016; and the number to which it was sent — Xanthea Limberg’s cellphone.

All of this is set out in a Mail & Guardian story, published on May 10.

There are strict human resources protocols governing the selection of senior management at local government level, issued in terms of the Municipal Structures Act and by the City of Cape Town. They are designed to ensure that panelists are subjected to a fair, objective and transparent process.

The SMS and the allegation regarding it was originally contained in the Steenhuisen Report — the product of a DA investigation into Cape Town caucus unhappiness — but it was never made public, and while the SMS was reported on by various media, the screenshot and the confirmation by Limberg — that she was the recipient — were only recent public developments.

If all of this is true, and De Lille sent the SMS in question, then De Lille has no option but to resign. The selection of any senior manager must be fair and impartial, by law.

There are strict human resources protocols governing the selection of senior management at local government level, issued in terms of the Municipal Structures Act and by the City of Cape Town. They are designed to ensure that panelists are subjected to a fair, objective and transparent process.

De Lille would have unequivocally violated that by asking Limberg to predetermine that Ebrahim receive the "highest" score, regardless of his merits as a candidate. Not only that, but everyone else interviewed would have been automatically prejudiced, making the whole process reviewable. It is akin to asking someone to rig a tender bid: totally unacceptable and the grounds for instant dismal by both the City of Cape Town and the DA.

In short, if true, it’s case closed. Whatever procedural wranglings the DA has become ensnared in regarding De Lille’s expulsion in the party, they are neither here nor there where this SMS is concerned: she must go.

So is it true? De Lille refuses to say, and that would seem telling.

Her response has typically been to evade answering the question. Primarily this has involved arguing that the DA has, for months, failed to send her the SMS in question. In this way, she has constantly managed to shift the media’s attention from the key question – whether or not she sent it – to the procedure surrounding her on and off again disciplinary hearing.

Here is a typical illustration, from De Lille, to the SABC:

"Since the DA established a disciplinary committee, one of the charges against me is that SMS. My lawyers have been asking the DA, for the past five months, to give us the name of the person that I sent the SMS to; the number and also a copy of the SMS. For five months the disciplinary hearing has been waiting on that evidence to come so that it can be tested in that disciplinary committee…."

But no answer to the key question: did she send it? Yes or no?

At almost every opportunity, De Lille has played this card. And it has worked very well for her. Consider this story, also from the Mail & Guardian.

In it, she says: "When they decided to charge me for the SMS, we said give us the number of the [recipient of the] SMS, give us the name of the person that had sent the SMS, give us a copy of the SMS. We’ve never received that, so I doubt whether this thing is genuine."

But again, no answer to the key question: did she send it? Yes or no?

At her worst, again without answering the key question, De Lille suggested that the SMS was the product of some or other romantic relationship in the DA. The Cape Times, no friend of real journalism these days, certainly lapped that up, giving her more column inches to fill with evasion and misdirection.

The pressure has been ratcheted up over the past 24 hours, however, and on Monday, News24 put the key question to De Lille in this story.

After enduring her usual bureaucratic obfuscation, it reported the result like this:

"When pressed on whether she denies sending the SMS, De Lille said she did not want to discuss the merits of the issue, as she wants to answer for it in her disciplinary hearing."

This is where De Lille’s defence breaks down. The DA’s disciplinary hearing and all the court cases that have flowed from it, are now irrelevant; totally and utterly beside the point. And the point is this: there is now a very clear, well-evidenced, corroborated and incredibly serious allegation against her in the public domain. As mayor and a publicly elected official, she reports first to the public. She owes the public an explanation. And urgently.

Her situation is now no different to any other newspaper story carrying credible evidence of wrongdoing in its pages: there must be a public reckoning. Of course, that is not to negate the necessary legal procedures taking their course and weighing the veracity of the evidence and the appropriate consequences. That must happen too. But the threshold for this being a credible indictment of her has now been breached and she needs to provide an explanation to the public. She no longer has any excuses to evade doing to.

Everything she demanded of the DA is now known: "the name of the person", "the number" and "a copy of the SMS". She has what she wanted. That is came by the media and not the DA is irrelevant; it is out there now and she needs to address it.

It is ironic because De Lille has built her reputation on exactly this kind of thing. Her exposure of various corrupt elements of the arms deal was built on using the public to demand accountability where the ANC refused to provide it formally. But she seems to have developed a certain disregard for the public’s rights in this regard of late.

And the point is this: there is now a very clear, well-evidenced, corroborated and incredibly serious allegation against her in the public domain

Consider, by way of comparison, the speed and alacrity with which she dealt with the fake auditor-general report (seemingly damning De Lille) that was doing the rounds on social media. The minute it was confirmed fake by the media, De Lille went to war.

She categorically denounced it, laid a complaint with the DA’s federal legal commission and even went so far as to lay criminal charges against those DA people who mistakenly shared it.

But with regard to the SMS? Nothing. No denial, no complaint, no criminal charges. Not even a threat to sue. And she would know if it were fake or not. It is alleged to have come directly from her. Why the silence on the SMS? Why the suggestion that she "wants to answer for it in her disciplinary hearing"?

Her approach to this, whatever it is designed to achieve, reeks of guilt. And if she is guilty, she is holding the people of Cape Town hostage to her own lack of conscience.

Procedurally, the way in which the DA has dealt with this matter has been a mess. Politically, too — why, for example, did the DA not put the De Lille SMS front and centre of its case against her?

There are many very serious ethical allegations against De Lille in the City of the Cape Town. But so much confusion and irregularity has surrounded the party’s political case against her that these have been lost in the noise. And besides, they are incredibly complex to understand.

Here, in this one simple SMS, the DA has an easy-to-understand, very serious, corroborated and evidenced allegation against her. That is not to downplay the other allegations; they too must be fully investigated, but, politically speaking at least, in this SMS the DA has what appears to be a silver bullet. No wonder De Lille is avoiding an explanation at all costs.

Nor does this exonerate the DA from having to account for any procedural irregularities in the manner in which has dealt with De Lille. If it has violated the law of the land in doing so, it should likewise account.

But this is about De Lille, her own conduct, moral conscience and her obligation to the public; not about the DA. She has nowhere left to hide on this issue. If she is right, and the SMS is not "genuine", then by all means make that case: a clear denial that she ever sent it and instigate legal action, in exactly the same way she did over the fake auditor-general report, against the DA and Xanthea Limberg. And if Limberg in any way acted improperly with regard to that SMS, then she too must account.

But silence will simply not do.

If it turns out at the end of all this, that the courts determine De Lille was treated unfairly procedurally, fair enough. Proper procedure must be followed and the DA will suffer the reputational consequences.

But, if it turns out at the end of this, procedure aside, that De Lille was indeed guilty of sending that SMS and all the other ethical violations she is accused of committing in the city (and of which Bowmans found "prima facie" evidence in support) then we will simply have another Zuma on our hands.

In other words, this would be another politician who, in order to avoid any personal responsibility for her actions, relied on endlessly obscuring the nature of her own conduct behind the technicalities of the various processes necessary to interrogate it.

De Lille’s victory in the High Court in Cape Town on Tuesday morning — which granted her temporary relief and reinstated her DA membership and mayoralty pending a full review on May 25 — is, in this sense, a distraction. Process is important, but it exists to get to the heart of any ethical concern. If it becomes the end point of any inquiry, it can be used to escape accountability. And De Lille, regardless of the DA, has a duty to truth and honesty, and to the public.

Patricia de Lille knows whether she sent that SMS or not. If she did, and she refuses to accept responsibility for it and has no sound explanation as to why, that is disgraceful behaviour. She needs to answer this one simple question.

• Van Onselen is the head of politics and governance at the South African Institute of Race Relations