Horse-trading at Ekurhuleni council as another motion looms

As Thursday’s second motion of no confidence against Ekurhuleni Democratic Alliance (DA) mayor Tania Campbell draws closer, there will be frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations to try and salvage what appears to be a no-win situation for her.

The Ekurhuleni council is made up of 224 seats and covers 112 wards. The ANC holds 86 seats, DA 65, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) 31, ActionSA 15, Freedom Front Plus 8, Patriotic Alliance 4, Inkatha Freedom Party 3, African Christian Democratic Party 2; while 10 smaller parties hold one seat each.

This gives an ANC-EFF partnership 117 votes versus only 107 votes with the rest of the parties combined.

It is still unclear who the DA may field as a candidate or, for that matter, whether the coalition would wheel out a candidate at all.

Insiders expect ANC leader in council Jongisizwe Dhlabati to be elected mayor.

EFF Speaker wants unity in council

Campbell was first ousted late last year but then re-elected when the EFF voted with the coalition “to give her a second chance”. She faces opposition from a newly aligned ANC and EFF, which accuse her government of poor service delivery.

The DA’s Raymond Dhlamini was ousted as speaker twice this year, first in an illegally constituted council meeting which the party challenged in court and won. Then, a fortnight later, he was legitimately forced to vacate his seat.

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The new speaker, EFF councillor Nthabiseng Tshivhenga, said she planned to play a conciliatory role in and unite a very divided chamber.

The election of a new mayor, should Campbell be ousted on Thursday, must happen within seven days of her exit.

State of the city address unlikely

A source in the council told The Citizen the expected state of the city address set for Thursday will not take place until a new mayor is elected. Instead, the motion of no confidence is on the agenda.

Coalitions have been falling like dominoes and muddy politics have soiled service delivery requirements to residents.

Parties have also been opaque about allegiances and in Tshwane, coalition councillors were allegedly selling their votes.

Now, the EFF has laid charges against the DA for election fraud, the DA’s challenging results, and the elected mayor was caught forging documents.

The DA-led coalition in Joburg saw former mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse booted out of office and she’s now gunning for DA leader John Steenhuisen’s job.

Sources accused Dhlamini of collapsing council meetings frequently, paralysing discourse and ultimately, direction for the city. An insider also told The Citizen there was no oversight by the speaker over the mayor’s conduct, which filtered through to the stable of mayoral committee members.

The EFF previously claimed Campbell’s mayoral committee, reconstituted after she was elected a second time, were incompetent and mediocre.

Campbell said there was no requirement for any of the mayoral committee members to hold specific qualifications.

She said, via her spokesperson: “There is no legislation that prescribes a specific qualification requirement to be appointed as a member of the mayoral committee in a metropolitan municipality.

“In this regard, [Campbell] remains confident the cumulative experience and skill set of her mayoral committee are sufficient for them to deliver on their constitutional mandate.”

To the contrary, late last year Campbell shared a list of achievements with The Citizen which included the restoration of 48km of road, electrification of more than 1 300 households and disconnecting well over 16 000 illegal electricity connections.

By November she said the city had also patched 29 000m2 of potholes, which equals 2.8 hectares of tarred road.

– news@citizen.co.za

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