DA fails in bid to remove ANC mayor
The DA failed to remove the ANC’s Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina on Thursday, in what was dubbed a critical showdown in the run-up to the electoral battle for control of the Gauteng province in the 2019 national election.
The DA failed to remove the ANC’s Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina on Thursday, in what was dubbed a critical showdown in the run-up to the electoral battle for control of the province of Gauteng in the 2019 national election.
The ANC held on to the Ekurhuleni metro by a narrow margin in 2016, the only metro in SA’s economic heartland the party still controls and which has a R38bn budget.
In an audacious move, the DA launched a motion of no confidence in Masina, attempting to capitalise on divisions within the governing party over support for him as well as disagreements among the parties in the ANC-led coalition governing the metro.
Both the ANC and DA rolled out their members to protest for and against Masina outside the council on Thursday. Gauteng premier and ANC provincial chair David Makhura was also present as he moved to defend the last metro governed by his party in the province.
Conceding defeat, DA caucus leader Phillip De Lange said the failure of the motion showed that the ANC placed corruption over the people of Ekurhuleni. The DA has compiled a dossier of corruption and servicedelivery failures against Masina, which it had presented to council, but ANC councillors opted to retain the mayor, he said.
Makhura told Business Day that the ANC was “100% together” in support of Masina and had no doubt over the loyalty of its coalition partners.
“One of the important things we have learned is not to take people for granted and being in coalition here is something that has put a great deal of pressure on us to go back to every area in Ekurhuleni and make sure we hear them,” he said. “We said to the mayor here we only run one metro; if there is anything we need to do, it is to showcase that we have learned and we are running things much better.”
He said the ANC leadership had placed Masina under immense pressure to deliver.
“We wanted to demonstrate that, after the setback of 2016, we must send a strong message that when the ANC is in charge, we can really make a decisive mark on improving the quality of life for our people, we need to show that.”
The DA is under pressure in the metros it won in 2016, and also in Cape Town.