The ANC will try to claim back Johannesburg council from the DA-led coalition this week by installing its regional chair Dada Morero as mayor.
This as the ruling coalition appear to be on shaky ground, with its partners expressing their unhappiness about the way the DA has been running the council.
The ANC and smaller parties are expected to gang up against the coalition by attempting to remove DA mayor Mpho Phalatse in a no-confidence motion on Tuesday. It's the same grouping that successfully voted out former DA speaker Vasco da Gama last week through a PAC-sponsored motion.
The Sunday Times understands that the ANC has agreed with COPE that it will hand the speaker position to COPE’s Coleen Makhubele in exchange for its support for Morero.
ANC leaders in the council believe attempts by coalition partners to expel councillors who voted out Da Gama will not affect Tuesday’s motion — should a court interdict instituted by acting speaker Bryne Maduka to stop the sitting not succeed.
“Their problem is that they say the new councillors they are installing will not work with us,” said an ANC leader in Johannesburg.
DA federal chair Helen Zille has refused to divulge the party’s strategy to save Phalatse, saying their negotiations were not a matter for public consumption.
This as small parties on the council have accused the DA of trying to remove councillors who voted against their speaker before the vote on Phalatse.
ActionSA pulled the trigger on their councillor who was absent during the vote on Da Gama.
The ACDP has also subjected their councillors to disciplinary action, including using lie detector tests, while the UIM unceremoniously fired their councillors on Friday.
UDM president Bantu Holomisa said the party’s only councillor in the city was within her rights to vote for whoever she deemed fit to govern.
Holomisa said councillors should be allowed to vote with their conscience in the same way opposition parties have argued in the National Assembly that MPs should not be forced to vote according to party allegiance.
Makhubele said the DA’s woes were self-inflicted because the party was refusing to share power in the council when it had not won a clear majority.
“They do not have a majority but are arrogant and want to govern alone and tell everyone else where to get off,” she said.
ActionSA, which is still in bed with the DA, agrees. The party’s Bongani Baloyi said the DA will find itself out in the cold if it continues refusing to share power.
“We are still confident we will be able to retain the coalition but it will take the DA giving the position of speaker to one of the coalition members, not ActionSA but one of the other coalition members,” said Baloyi.
“The DA needs to deepen the participation of other parties in the coalition and more so at a senior level, which is a troika which governs municipalities [through the] council, chief whip and executive mayor. They can’t take all the positions there.”
The AIC, which was the initiator of the motion of no confidence against Phalatse, said she has to go because she has been missing in action and has failed to perform her duties.
Said Margaret Arnolds: “There has not been service delivery — the grass is long and where I live, in Eldorado Park, the grass is taller than me. There are issues around water and electricity [supply] everywhere in the city and the mayor is not bothered because she lives in Pretoria. There is no service delivery at all in our city.”
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