A battle is looming in the ANC over who becomes the next mayor of Tshwane after the ousting of the DA’s Cilliers Brink this week.
The ANC provincial leadership in Gauteng is now believed to be considering fielding its own candidate instead of backing ActionSA’s Nasiphi Moya as previously agreed. And the ANC's regional branch in Tshwane wants the next mayor to come from its ranks which could pit them against the provincial leadership.
Tshwane regional executive committee (REC) members this week told the Sunday Times there is a faction in the Gauteng provincial executive that wants to impose Kgosi Maepa, a special adviser in the office of Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, as mayor. Maepa previously served as ANC Tshwane regional chair and as an adviser to the city’s former ANC mayor.
The Gauteng ANC provincial leadership reneged on its agreement with ActionSA after resolving that the party with the most votes should take the mayorship. But there are those in the provincial leadership who are not keen on the ANC taking over the city’s mayoral chain because of the chaotic state of its finances.
The ANC's Tshwane region is said to believe that its chair, Eugene “Bonzo” Modise, should be mayor. Sources said the region was prepared to take the fight to the ANC’s national officials.
“There’s a sitting regional chair and we believe there's no need to create many centres of power. The chair must take charge,” said an ANC REC leader.
We have dealt with the first phase of removing Brink. We are going back to the drawing board to decide on whether the ANC is going to field a candidate.
— ANC Tshwane secretary-general George Matjila
The REC leaders said the province had clearly not learnt from the riots that erupted in 2016 when there was a push to impose Thoko Didiza as mayor. “In 2016 they tried the same thing and look at what happened. That’s actually when the ANC started to lose support in the province,” said one insider.
Another REC insider echoed these sentiments, saying Maepa's name was being brought up “so that national leadership can view this region as destructive and unstable”.
“Because who must resign to make way for Maepa to come into council? Internal factional politics are at play and this is being cooked somewhere to create a narrative that there’s instability. One thing I can tell you is that we are going to decide who will be our mayor as the region and we will take that decision to national. We will take three names and whoever gets the highest number will become the mayor — not these people they are trying to impose on us,” said the source.
ANC Tshwane secretary-general George Matjila said as far as they are concerned there has not been a final decision on whether the ANC will field its own mayoral candidate. The city has 14 days to elect a new mayor.
“We have dealt with the first phase of removing Brink. We are going back to the drawing board to decide on whether the ANC is going to field a candidate. Then that's where we are going to start the debate of who becomes the mayor, but we will follow the organisational process which dictates that there must be three names,” he said.
Brink was ousted after talks between top DA and ANC leaders to retain him “fell apart” as ANC Gauteng leaders vowed to oust him.
This is according to DA federal council chair Helen Zille, who says she held several meetings over the issue with ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and the ANC’s lead coalition negotiator, David Makhura.
“We had several interactions with Mbalula and Makhura,” Zille said. “They were bullish about the prospects of reaching some sort of stability agreement involving the various metros to bring an end to this incessant stream of motions of no confidence to remove mayors. This level of instability deeply damages service delivery.
“However, they were unable to persuade the ANC leadership in Gauteng to be part of the ‘bigger picture’ stability agreement. And when Lesufi said that if they voted Brink out the ANC would succeed him (and not the ActionSA nominee), Mbalula and Makhura hit a dead-end. It then fell apart.”
The ANC in Gauteng has, however, denied these claims, saying the DA was trying to sow divisions between them and Luthuli House by insinuating that they were being defiant. Some provincial executive committee (PEC) members said the DA was behaving like a faction of the ANC.
ANC Gauteng secretary TK Nciza said on Friday that the DA has, on numerous occasions, sought to cement a narrative of disunity within the ANC. “It has desperately sought to position the ANC Gauteng PEC as a rogue structure that is perpetually contradicting the posture of the NEC,” he said.
“This dangerous, albeit intentional, characterisation is done with the intention to malign the ANC leadership in Gauteng and to single out the ANC Gauteng provincial chair comrade Panyaza Lesufi and the provincial secretary comrade Thembinkosi 'TK' Nciza as rebels.”
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