Trollip upbeat on surviving EFF motion
Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip will face an EFF-sponsored motion of no confidence for the second time in as many weeks on Tuesday.
Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip will face an EFFsponsored motion of no confidence for the second time in as many weeks on Tuesday.
The metro council meeting on March 29 descended into chaos before the motion was even debated after Trollip and the DA succeeded in consolidating enough support to keep the mayor from being axed.
The meeting was adjourned by council speaker Jonathan Lawack and was postponed to this Tuesday.
Last-minute manoeuvring led to the Patriotic Alliance and the African Independent Congress lending support to the coalition council of the DA, the Congress of the People and the African Christian Democratic Party, giving Trollip the 61 seats in council he needed to survive. If the balance of forces do not change dramatically, Trollip will survive the motion on Tuesday.
The EFF tabled a motion of no confidence in the mayor’s leadership, saying it wanted to punish the DA for not supporting the call for land expropriation without compensation.
The EFF, the ANC and the United Democratic Movement (UDM) had all indicated that they would vote Trollip out.
The relationship between the UDM and the DA disintegrated in the metro when tension between Trollip and former deputy mayor Mongameli Bobani, of the UDM, intensified after the coalition metro council took office in 2016.
Trollip told Business Day on Saturday on the sidelines of the DA’s federal congress, where he was re-elected as federal chairman of the party, that he believed the motion against him would fail.
“We have to do things in politics to make sure that the promises we made to the people manifest themselves,” he said, adding that support for his party was growing in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro.
“If we had an election tomorrow there is no doubt that we would win that municipality.”
There was no way of rectifying the relationship with the UDM in Nelson Mandela Bay, he said. The coalition would not be able to work with the UDM until it replaced Bobani, he said.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa has said his party will not support the DA in the metro, even if it fielded another candidate in Trollip’s place.