The DA has called an urgent meeting of its Johannesburg council caucus to decide on its approach for Friday's special council meeting which is expected to elect a new mayor after Al Jama-ah’s Kabelo Gwamanda’s resignation.
This comes as EFF Gauteng chairperson Nkululeko Dunga said it would like to continue to serve on the mayoral committee when a new mayor is elected.
Speaking to TimesLIVE Premium on Tuesday evening, DA Johannesburg caucus leader Belinda Echeozonjoku said the party had yet to decide whether it would support the election of ANC mayoral candidate Dada Morero or field its own candidate.
She said she had engaged with the DA's national leadership and an approach to the special council meeting would be finalised by the Johannesburg caucus on Wednesday night.
“We only received the notice very late because the mayor's announcement did not give a time when it iseffected. For us, this was a concern because that meant that the mayoral committee is not resolved ... We have not had a chance to sit as a caucus. We have 71 councillors. I have engaged with our provincial and national leadership... we will be engaging and discussing our approach,” she said.
Dunga, however, said the EFF had proven that it was capable of deliverables, having led the mayoral council in the community safety and health department.
“There has been no MMCs who have been more visible in the City of Johannesburg than those of the EFF who have advocated for better service delivery for the people. But we also understand that the discretion of the mayoral committee would lie with the newly elected mayor. We are hopeful that there will be a consideration of the EFF having looked at the track record, particularly in the city of Johannesburg, and our reaffirmation of a commitment to ensuring that there is the constitution of a government that delivers services to the people of Joburg,” he said.
Dunga said that it was unfortunate there was a power struggle in the ANC. He said the ANC was “extremely obsessed with positions and the instability that is created through the chopping and changing of the leadership, particularly political leadership in the city, can be equated directly to the ANC”.
Dunga said that when the ANC finally meets the EFF, the two parties will be able to find one another to constitute a government.
“Obviously, at this point, we cannot dictate to any political party who it is that they are bringing forth as a contender for the mayoral position. But there are fundamentals that the EFF will always subject itself to, and that is to ensure that there's a candidate that is credible, that has a great track record in terms of service delivery, that is an activist and has a deep understanding and a deep love for the people of Johannesburg. Those are things that we would look at supporting.
“We understand as the EFF that we only have 29 seats in council, and the unfortunate part of it is that council comprises 270 councillors. So you would need at least 136 to be victorious and get the mayoral chain, and therefore, it's going to require some sort of co-governance exercise that will consider interaction with political parties. The ANC, at this point, is in the forerunning on the basis that they have a majority.”
The ANC has ANC 91 seats in the council. With the EFF, ActionSA, Patriotic Alliance and the IFP, the ANC will have enough votes to install Morero as mayor on Friday.
I would figure that the engagement is between the ANC and ActionSA, and if they get it right, it will still require some level of engagement with ourselves and other political parties to constitute a majority for it to be tabled before the council.
— Nkululeko Dunga, EFF Gauteng chairperson
Dunga said the EFF could not dictate who would take the speaker position, adding there had been no engagement with the ANC or ActionSA about the speaker position.
“I would figure that the engagement is between the ANC and ActionSA, and if they get it right, it will still require some level of engagement with ourselves and other political parties to constitute a majority for it to be tabled before the council.”
“We have not had any discussion with ActionSA, nor do we have any engagement in relation to the position of speaker. From where we are standing Margaret Arnold remains the speaker of the council, and she comes from the AIC, which was a position that we had agreed upon with the ANC and other like-minded political parties.”
This could signal that ActionSA may not get the support it is hoping for to take the position of speaker.
TimesLIVE Premium previously reported that some in the ANC, especially in the Johannesburg region, are not in full support of installing an ActionSA speaker.
However, ActionSA chairperson Michael Beaumont said on Tuesday that he was confident this would materialise.
“At the meeting, the ANC was essentially reporting back the terms of the acceptance of the conditions ActionSA placed upon involvement in this government. I reiterated that involvement remains in the legislature and not the executive and is not bound by a coalition agreement, per our previous communication,” he said.
“It appears ActionSA will take up seats in committees in Johannesburg, as well as the position of speaker, and effectively we are poised to participate in a constructive manner in this government, lending our votes, issue by issue, to this government on the merits of the issue at hand.”
This is the same system proposed by the DA in negotiations with the ANC after the May 29 elections.
The system known as the supply and confidence model allows parties to support each other on an issue-by-issue basis.
Beaumont said with 44 seats in council, ActionSA was in a comfortable position and would walk away from the deal with the ANC should the party renege on the agreement to install an ActionSA representative as speaker.
