EFF withdraws motion of no confidence in Trollip

The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro council special meeting on Thursday to finally debate the much-frustrated Economic Freedom Fighters motion of no confidence in mayor Athol Trollip and speaker Jonathan Lawack has ended with a retreat from the EFF.

The motion to reinstate the position of deputy mayor was also withdrawn.

The debate was previously postponed on two occasions when the council sittings ended abruptly after members of the opposition disrupted the proceedings with continuous interjections. It was initially scheduled for 10 April but then postponed indefinitely.

The last meeting had to be postponed when EFF members disrupted the speaker, demanding his resignation for alleged bias as a presiding officer. Although the UDM was initially part of the disruption, its councillor Mongamela Bobani was later warned by his party to desist from disruptive behaviour or disciplinary action would be taken against him, including being recalled from council.

The UDM said that, although it favoured Trollip’s removal, it was against any public display of ill-discipline by its councillors and always wanted council decorum to be respected. Bobani remained calm throughout the last council meeting.

The EFF’s move to oust Trollip was thrown into disarray when the Patriotic Alliance (PA) decided to break away from the opposition and sided with the DA in favour of keeping Trollip as mayor. The PA argued that it was opposed to the EFF’s allegedly racist motivation for removing Trollip after it claimed the mayor had to go because he was white and the DA had failed to support land expropriation without compensation in parliament.

In its effort, the EFF was backed by the opposition ANC and UDM while the African Independent Congress (AIC), Congress of the People and African Christian Democratic Party were likely to vote with the DA against the motion. The AIC previously aligned itself with the ANC but decided to oppose the motion for reasons that echoed the PA’s.

Out of the 120 seats in Nelson Mandela Bay, the DA-led coalition holds 61 seats of which 57 are for the DA. The EFF has six seats, the UDM two and there is one each for the ACDP, AIC, PA and Cope, while the ANC occupies the remaining 50.

The ruling coalition unexpectedly found itself on the back foot on Thursday morning when one of its councillors did not initially show up in council.

The Citizen understands the party was already facing the blow of one of its councillors not being able to attend the council vote due to a court appearance he could not get out of related to a funeral parlour and a commercial dispute.

When the party realised its councillor, Lodewyk Gallant, was in Life Mercantile Hospital in Port Elizabeth, he was urgently fetched. The Citizen understands he’d been admitted overnight with a “stomach ailment” and placed on a drip, but that his situation was not life-threatening. He’ll now be heading back to hospital.