Crunch time for mayor Mashaba as vote looms
The ANC’s planned motion of no confidence against Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba could not come at a worse time for the DA.
The relationship between Mashaba’s DA and the EFF has soured so badly that there is no certainty the red berets will support him in the vote at the end of September.
It is not clear whether the EFF will even attend the caucus meeting on the day.
The opposition ANC, which is expected to table the motion, citing poor metropolitan council finances, will have the majority at the council meeting if the EFF abstains, as it has done at the past two meetings.
The ANC has 121 council seats, the DA 104 and the EFF 30, with the rest of the seats held by smaller parties.
A majority vote in the 270member council requires 136 votes.
The council’s rules specify that a vote of no confidence requires 50% plus one of all councillors present for the motion to succeed, as long as members present constitute a quorum.
EFF Johannesburg caucus leader Musa Novela said the motion of no confidence remained a rumour until it was tabled in council.
The EFF’s national leadership has, however, taken a hard line on the DA’s actions in Nelson Mandela Bay, which culminated in the removal of United Democratic Movement deputy mayor Mongameli Bobani. The leadership said that EFF councillors would not attend coalition-led council meetings to teach the DA how to work with smaller parties as it had not won the municipalities on its own.
The EFF said in a statement, explaining its boycott, that the actions of the DA in Nelson Mandela Bay “demonstrated an arrogance of power and white supremacy”.
Meetings of the councils of Tshwane and Johannesburg were adjourned on Thursday last week when EFF caucus members did not attend and the ANC caucuses later staged walkouts, leaving the council meetings without quorums.
Mashaba announced on Thursday that the ANC had filed the motion of no confidence against him and said the party had cited “so-called” financial distress in the city as the primary grounds for the motion.
The ANC recently raised issues concerning the financial position of the city, claiming that the Johannesburg council was on the brink of financial collapse. The DA denied this.
Mashaba said: “The reality is that despite the institutionalised corruption inherited, we have a financial state that is stable.
“The ANC was dishonest in government, and their relationship with the truth has continued its demise,” he said.
Coming after only 13 months into the council’s term of office, the move should be dismissed as “the antics of a desperate party trying to come to terms with its new role in opposition”, the mayor said.