Voting for Ekurhuleni council speaker starts
The African National Congress’ Patricia Khumalo is up against the Democratic Alliance’s Shado Shabangu to be the speaker of the City of Ekurhuleni’s council.After a comfort break to allow the Electoral Commission to set up ballots‚ council secretary Nana Moloi called the names of all 224 councillors before voting could resume.After the results are publicly announced‚ the new speaker will take over and preside over the election of the executive mayor and chief whip of council.There was an earlier delay to this as Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) members demanded that the secret ballot system be suspended for the election of the speaker.“Why can’t we allow people who do not want their votes secret to be allowed to do so?” an EFF councillor asked of Moloi.Moloi rejected the proposal‚ arguing that she would be contravening the act governing the election of officials in council.“I can't contravene the act‚” she said.On Monday‚ the EFF caused havoc in the City of Johannesburg when it disrupted proceedings‚ demanding that its members be allowed to show their ballots as a confirmation that they voted for a particular nominee.This stance by the EFF has been seen as an indicator that there are doubts that all the members of the party in council would support the directive to vote for the Democratic Alliance. – TMG Digital..
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