Turmoil in Tshwane: Political tensions escalate over coalition disputes

Political tension is rocking the Tshwane coalition as ActionSA and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) bump heads over the leadership and management of the municipality.

Last week, ActionSA Tshwane regional chair Jackie Mathabathe said the party will head to court to overturn the City of Tshwane council’s speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana’s unlawful decision to reject a motion of no confidence against himself.

Mathabathe said the approach to the courts was based on the reality that the multiparty coalition in Tshwane will not achieve stability with an ANC-EFF-sponsored speaker at the helm.

EFF regional chair Obakeng Ramabodu hit back soon after, saying the party rejected the ludicrous and costly proposal for the position of deputy mayor put forward by the Democratic Alliance (DA) and its coalition partners to appease ActionSA.

Ramabodu said Tshwane EFF rejected the proposal even before it reached the Tshwane municipal chamber.

“The DA has gone so far as to create the position of deputy mayor to keep ActionSA happy in this ineffective marriage of convenience.

“The financial position of the municipality does not resonate with the superfluous position of deputy mayor, which will cost the city R4 million per annum,” he said.

“Breaking away from the clutches of the ineffective Randall Williams into the hands of the arrogant and legally incompetent Cilliers Brink, the city is projected to incur an exorbitant cost of over R10 million at the expense of an executive mayor who is forever on Twitter giving updates on power outages, ineffective traffic lights, load shedding and blocked drains in the comfort of his office, taking over the functions of the municipality’s communication department and its spokesperson.”

Ramabodu said a competent and service delivery-orientated mayor would go to where the people were and hear their grievances to improve the quality of their lives and the environment in which they live.

Political analyst Piet Croucamp said the political power battle between different coalition fractions had negative consequences for service delivery.

“That’s politicians – see the worry in their eyes. For politicians it’s about position, status, power and control, which is fine, that’s what politics is about.

“But if you do it at the expense of society, hopefully, society will take a dim view of that, but have a system of identity politics rather than interest-based participation,” he said.

Croucamp said South African politics was not about the people but about power. Head of political studies at North-West University Dr Benjamin Rapanyane said residents were the biggest losers in the continued unnecessary motions of no confidence.

“The current horse-trading in Tshwane is what we expected, although it should have been carried out maturely and faster to restore the stability of the city of Tshwane.

“If anything, stability in leadership is the utmost requirement for Tshwane as a city to function fully and deliver essential services to the communities which is the primary goal of electing parties to government,” he said.

Rapanyane said the continued back and forth “is childish and shows how disrespectful these parties are to the electorate”.