DA’s Tania Campbell re-elected as City of Ekurhuleni mayor

Democratic Alliance (DA) member Tania Campbell has been re-elected as the executive mayor of the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality.

The City of Ekurhuleni held its extraordinary council meeting on Tuesday after the collapse of a previous sitting.

The metro had been without a leader for over two weeks following Campbell’s removal through an ANC-sponsored motion of no-confidence on 26 October.

Nominations

Tuesday’s proceedings saw Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Gauteng chairperson and caucus leader in Ekurhuleni, Nkululeko Dunga, withdrawing from the mayoral race.

Dunga had accepted his party’s nomination for the position, but made a sudden U-turn after the ANC nominated its deputy regional chairperson, Jongizizwe Dlabathi, while Campbell was fielded as the DA’s candidate yet again.

Explaining why he withdrew, Dunga said the EFF was not obsessed with power.

“We looked at the conditions and remember the EFF is not obsessed with power… what we are obsessed about is that there must be a constitution of government, a government of majority and a government that will deliver effective services to our people,” he told the media at the Civic Centre Council Chambers in Germiston.

ALSO READ: Mzwandile Masina withdraws from Ekurhuleni mayoral race

Last week, ANC Ekurhuleni chair, Mzwandile Masina also pulled out as a mayoral candidate, saying he had already served his five-year term.

Masina was the mayor of Ekurhuleni for one term under a multiparty coalition government from 2016 to 2021.

According to reports, there was a meeting between the EFF and ANC where it was apparently agreed that the majority party’s councillors would support Dunga.

With 224 councillors present at the council sitting, 124 of them voted in favour of Campbell while Dlabathi received 99 votes.

City of Joburg

Minority opposition parties in the City of Joburg have confirmed their intend to bring yet another motion of no confidence against reinstated mayor, Mpho Phalatse.

In a media briefing on Monday, the minority parties part of the ANC-led coalition criticised the DA and ActionSA for using the courts to run the Joburg metro.

Phalatse returned to the helm of the city last month after winning her bid in challenging her removal as the metro’s mayor.

While the ANC had put forward a new motion, this was later withdrawn after the DA threatened legal action.

READ MORE: Joburg minority parties accuse DA and ActionSA of using courts to run metro

The DA had planned to interdict the city’s council sitting which may have voted Phalatse out out of office again.

Meanwhile, the minority parties on Monday cited a “financial crisis” within the city as one of its reason to file a new motion.

ANC regional chair Dada Morero said last week that the city was on the verge of financial ruin and predicated that municipal workers would not be paid in January.

Although Phalatse denied Morero’s claims, the Joburg mayor conceded that she has asked the council to sit urgently to approve a R2 billion short-term loan from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) because the city was at great financial risk.

Additional reporting by Lunga Mzangwe