The Congress of the People (Cope) has terminated the membership of Johannesburg city council speaker Colleen Makhubele.
This follows her appearance on South African Rainbow Alliance (Sara) posters, an amalgamation of smaller parties that seek to jointly contest next year’s general elections.
According to the posters that emerged at the weekend, Makhubele will be the alliance’s presidential candidate.
Cope national chair Teboho Loate has distanced the party from Sara.
He told TimesLIVE Premium that by taking membership of another organisation, Makhubele effectively terminated her Cope membership, as having dual membership is a breach of the party’s constitution.
“Article 19 (3) of the constitution says the minute you have dual membership, then you cease to be a member of Cope. In this instance, we have seen on social media that Colleen has started a new party,” he said.
“The documents before say this thing is a new party that is going to contest elections. In essence she fired herself.”
As the party’s Gauteng structure investigated the matter on Saturday morning, Makhubele posted the pictures that indicated she is now leading something else.
They (Sara) had invited the president (Mosiuoa Lekota), he heard what was happening and was still to brief Cope leadership about what he had heard. No decision was taken and he was just as surprised when he saw this development.
— Cope national chair Teboho Loate
The party’s highest structure, the congress national committee met on Sunday night to discuss the matter and decided to sever ties with Makhubele.
In terms of Makhubele’s position as speaker of the Joburg council, Loate said the political parties that are co-governing the city will decide.
“She went in there on the Cope ticket as a councillor and in that process, like any coalition, we negotiated positions. The speaker position doesn’t necessarily belong to Cope, it belongs to the council and the parties that negotiated and are in the majority in the council.
“We are withdrawing our councillor to present another councillor to replace her,” he said.
Makhubele was elected Joburg council’s speaker in September 2022 by a coalition that includes the ANC and EFF as major parties and minority parties such as UDM‚ Cope, AIC and the Patriotic Alliance (PA).
The Gauteng branch of Cope will discuss Makhubele’s replacement, said Loate.
He revealed that the party wasn’t completely in the dark about Sara and that its president Mosiuoa Lekota had been invited to discussions about the concept.
But the developments involving Makhubele took place before he reported back to the party.
“They had invited the president, he heard what was happening and was still to brief Cope leadership about what he had heard. No decision was taken and he was just as surprised when he saw this development.”
Loate said Makhubele may appeal the termination of her membership if she wishes.
Makhubele could not be reached for comment.
TimesLIVE
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