UPDATED: Newcastle’s deputy mayor spins ‘gusheshe’ out of control and into a crowd of spectators

UPDATE: This story has been updated to include the complete article as it appeared in the Northern Natal News print edition of December 9.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to include information we received from ER24 regarding spectators who were injured. Scroll to the bottom of the story to read the update.

A viral video of Newcastle’s deputy mayor, Cllr Musa (Sugar) Thwala, losing control of his recently purchased ‘gusheshe’ at a spinning event and ploughing into a crowd of spectators, begins with a peppy commentator shouting enthusiastically into the microphone.

The spinning event took place at the old Monte Vista Casino in Newcastle on Sunday, November 27. Spectators said the event was authorised and there were ample police and paramedics present.

“Sugar, baba! Team Sugar, baba!” yells the commentator, and Thwala revs his engine in response.

Sand flies as Thwala completes his first spin and the commentators roars, “Haibo! Haibo!

The crowd goes wild. “Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay! Haibo!” the commentator continues, drumming up more cheers for Thwala. “Deputy mayor, baba! Deputy mayor!”

Less than 20 seconds after Thwala takes the wheel, however, he loses control of the vehicle, first careening into a stack of two tyres sending a hapless photographer tumbling headlong from where he was perched on top, then Thwala slams through the makeshift barricade into the crowd of spectators.

The commentator goes dead quiet. Thwala goes right on spinning as if nothing had happened.

“From how that photographer fell, I thought for certain he must have broken his neck. I was shocked that he didn’t. He was so lucky not to be badly injured,” said a spectator. “One lady, who was in the crowd, had to be carried away in a stretcher and there were other people who were also hurt.”

“The crowd was so upset. People started booing Thwala and he still didn’t stop, just carried on spinning. When he was finished and he finally came out of the vehicle, he even had the audacity to take a bow in front of the crowd. I was so disgusted,” added the spectator.

Spectators who spoke to the Northern Natal News about what they witnessed at the event asked not to be named. However, their identities are known to the Northern Natal News.

UPDATE:

ER24 spokesperson, Ineke Van Huyssteen, confirmed that a crew of paramedics from ER24 was on duty at the spinning event.

Van Huyssteen was further able to confirm that seven spectators were injured.

“Three sustained moderate injuries while four sustained minor injuries,” stated Van Huyssteen responding to a media enquiry from the Northern Natal News.

UPDATE: 

Thwala is the founding member and president of a political party called Team Sugar South Africa. Outperforming the Democratic Alliance in Newcastle, Team Sugar emerged as a critical player in local government whose support was needed to unseat the ANC as the ruling party.

Believed to be the underdogs in the political arena, Team Sugar, surprised its political rivals by claiming more seats in the Newcastle council than ActionSA, the Freedom Front Plus and the National Freedom Party combined.

Team Sugar won nine seats in total, including two ward councillor seats plus five party representative seats in Newcastle, one ward councillor seat in Dannhauser, and one seat in the Amajuba District Council. The party has since expanded to eThekwini where it has signed up hundreds of members.

The success of Team Sugar in the local government elections paved the way for Thwala to become Newcastle’s deputy mayor.

As one of the town’s leaders, spectators said they felt that Thwala’s reckless behaviour at the spinning event was, “shocking and callous.”

The spinning event took place at the old Monte Vista Casino in Newcastle on Sunday, November 27. Spectators said the event was authorised and there were ample police and paramedics present.

One spectator, who was seated roughly 20 meters from where Thwala crashed into the crowd, said this was the first spinning event he had attended and it will be the last.

I overheard them talking before the deputy mayor started spinning and the organisers expressed some surprise that he wanted to spin the car, seeing as it was a collectors’ car and in excellent condition, so it must have been quite expensive. While the deputy mayor was spinning, he hit the camera guy off a few tyres and then went through the crowd,” said the spectator, who asked not to be named.

He continued spinning as if nothing was wrong and people started getting mad at him. The crowd started shouting and pointing at him. Everyone was saying that it was surprising that the town’s deputy mayor would be doing things like that. They were angry that he just carried on spinning and he didn’t seem to care about anyone who got hit. He just carried on spinning until his tyres wore out. That’s normally when they stop. Even afterwards he did not check on the people who were injured,” he continued.

This spectator said he also observed a lady being carried away on a stretcher and about six or seven people who were treated by the paramedics for minor injuries.

Amajuba District cluster commander, General Fred Alexander, said local law enforcement had not received any reports arising from the incident and no cases were opened.

Motorsports professional, Preshu Singh, who also participated in the spinning event fears that the incident ‘created a dent’ in motor sports.

Described in the media as a ‘Spin-King,’ Singh is a judge on e-TV reality show ‘So you think you can spin’, as well as in the ‘SA Spin Challenge’.

As a motor sports professional, I have been spinning for more than 20 years. We’ve basically taken spinning to where it is today. The kind of incident, like the one involving the deputy mayor, puts a dent in what we are trying to achieve,” said Singh.

He explains, “You have to look after your spectators and ensure that they are safe. Safety should be the number one priority at any spinning event because it is the fans you have to protect that make your event a success. I feel sorry for those who were injured.”

“It was a bit reckless to allow him to participate because he didn’t seem to have any experience. An experienced spinner knows instinctively when to press on the clutch and when to brake. The worst thing is that he knocked into people and just carried on. Even among professionals you sometimes have incidents, it has never happened to me, but things can go wrong but you can’t just go on spinning when it does. You should jump out and see if everyone is fine, anyone would do that, it’s human nature. It doesn’t matter to me that he is the deputy mayor but the fact of the matter is that his actions have put a dent in spinning and that’s where the problem lies. We have done so much to promote the sport and now we have someone who has affected the reputation of the sport,” Singh concluded.

Asked to share his feelings on the conduct of Newcastle’s deputy mayor, speaker of the council, Cllr Thengi Zulu, said he didn’t feel comfortable commenting on a councillor’s private life. Zulu said he didn’t even know that Thwala was involved in spinning. He described the incident as unfortunate, saying, “As a citizen of Newcastle, I sympathise with the people affected.”

Numerous attempts to contact Thwala prior to print proved fruitless.

Read the full story including comments made by police, the speaker of the council and spectators, as well as ‘Spin-King’, Preshu Singh, who describes the impact an incident like this is likely to have on motorsports, in Thursday’s edition of the Northern Natal News section in your community newspaper.

WATCH: Newcastle Deputy Mayor, Cllr Shugela Thwala plows through a crowd of spectators:

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