Meet Laingsburg's 'mayor by mistake': Coalition politics catapults ex-petrol jockey into power

Johannes Mienies still can't quite believe it. Neither can the whole of Laingsburg, a town in the Karoo.

The unemployed construction worker, previously a petrol attendant on the busy main road, is the town's new mayor.

Mienies, 45, has no local government experience, cannot drive, and walks 15 minutes across town to his mayoral office from the two-bedroomed township house he has shared with his mother since birth.

His meteoric rise is all the more remarkable because his political party won just 220 votes in the last local government election. But such is the stalemate between the DA and the ANC in the central Karoo that the upstart Karoo Ontwikkelings Party (Karoo Development Party) is the kingmaker in town.

The KOP's tiny harvest of votes earned it a solitary council seat - enough to form a majority with the DA at the expense of the ANC and bag the mayoral chair as reward.

FINANCIAL MISCONDUCT

Mienies was not the KOP's first choice as mayoral candidate. But the previous KOP mayor was ousted by the party due to alleged financial misconduct, and Mienies was an eligible substitute.

"It is quite a surprise," soft-spoken Mienies told the Sunday Times in his office this week. "My children are still coming to terms with it."

So too is most of the town, including a faction within his own party that wants him removed by the Independent Electoral Commission.

His political foes in the ANC also want him out, claiming he is a "mayor by mistake" who could damage the town. This week the ANC also lodged a complaint against Mienies for allegedly being drunk on duty and refusing a breathalyser test.

But Mienies dismissed the "politicking" around his appointment and insisted his first priority was tackling unemployment, of which he has first-hand experience.

His contract as a junior foreman on a construction site in the Northern Cape expired last year. Before that he worked for years at the Shell Ultra garage in the centre of town, where a photograph of him in uniform adorns the attendants' office.

Mienies was also quick to show off his 72-year-old mother, Elsie Mienies, who worked for years as a cleaner at a high-school hostel to support her only son. "I am really, really proud of him," she said, embracing him warmly. "This has changed my life."

She scoffed at suggestions that she now had celebrity status in the dusty streets of Goldenville, beside the N1. "When people ask me how it feels [to be the mother of the mayor], I tell them I feel like hiding away."

Asked if she expected any perks, she said she hoped her son would take her to the doctor to treat her asthma. The mayor said his mother could expect more than that if he keeps his post: he intends extending the family home.

SOBER APPROACH NEEDED

However, Mienies faces an uphill battle to cling to power and defend his legitimacy. The KOP's previous mayoral candidate in the town, Aubrey Marthinus, was removed from office late last year following a disciplinary process.

Mienies, who has been in office for only a month, faces a similar challenge from a faction within the party seeking to reinstate the former mayor, according to documents in the possession of the Sunday Times.

The ANC chief whip in the Laingsburg council, Bennie Kleinbooi, said the town could not sustain such "chaotic leadership" until the next local government elections in 2021.

"Democracy is strange - 200 votes and they are calling the shots," Kleinbooi said, adding that the situation was aggravated by the infighting within the KOP.

Kleinbooi said Mienies was being used as a puppet by power-hungry KOP leaders with questionable motives. "We've got nothing against Mienies - it is the people around him," said Kleinbooi, who grew up with Mienies.

KOP chairman Willem Adams said he was aware of the allegations about Mienies's drinking. "For that reason I have my eye on him. I am very strict. This [drinking] is one thing of which he must be very careful."

He said Mienies should be given the chance to prove himself: "He is still in the learning process."

IEC Western Cape electoral officer Courtney Sampson acknowledged governance challenges related to coalitions. He said KOP had no power to remove Mienies from the council unless it revoked his party membership - in which case his council position would become vacant and the IEC would intervene. Mienies would lose his mandate only if the KOP legitimately revoked his party membership.

Of his morning walk to the office, Mienies said it helped him keep in touch with his constituency. "I meet a lot of people on the way - I enjoy engaging with them."

Walking is all very well, but he intends taking an eye test so he can get a driver's licence for the mayoral car.

jordanb@sundaytimes.co.za