The resignation comes two days after city council speaker Dirk Smit laid criminal charges against Herron and Patricia de Lille, who stepped down as mayor on Wednesday, in line with a council resolution based on the Bowmans report on alleged high-level corruption in the running of the city.

Herron, who was recently among the candidates to succeed De Lille as mayor, was scathing about the DA as he announced his decision to the media in Salt River, describing the party as "a lost cause".

He appeared to fight back tears as he described the DA caucus in Cape Town's decision to shelve the sale of the Salt River Market site to Communicare, a low cost rental housing company, as "the last straw".

"It is clear that some in our party are clinging to the racial exclusivity of residential areas engineered by apartheid," he added.

Herron, who has claimed that the affordable housing plans he championed would reverse the spatial legacy of apartheid, accused Woodstock ward councillor Dave Bryant of lobbying to block the Salt River project.

But he also took broader aim at senior DA MPs who won an internal battle to have the party supplant support for black economic empowerment with a broader diversity clause, terming the group an "inner cabal".

Herron's claims on racist opposition from within the party to plans to promote affordable housing echo those of De Lille last year when the party began investigating allegations against her.

Smit laid charges against Herron in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.

OFM News