FROM BASKET CASE TO MADHOUSE

The stomach politics battering Tshwane could quickly leave the small parties playing god fighting for scraps

here is something visceral about South African politics, and no unfolding political drama illustrates this as effectively as the battle for control raging in the City of Tshwane. By the time this column hits the streets, a council sitting may have been held to elect a new mayor. This follows the election on Monday of Mncedi Ndzwanana of the African Transformation Movement (ATM) as speaker.

The ATM, if you recall, is the spawn of ANC factional politics, a hyena-infested den inhabited by remnants of the governing party’s RET faction linked to former secretary-general Ace Magashule and former president Jacob Zuma.

The party was endorsed to take over the speaker’s seat by the EFF and by ANC Gauteng chair Panyaza Lesufi, whose party comes under intense onslaught from the ATM at every turn in parliament. When the council sits to elect a mayor, the ANC/EFF coalition is likely to put up its own candidate.

Ndzwanana’s election was only the latest dramatic development in

Tshwane, and it happened even though the numerical majority in the council is held by the former governing coalition involving the DA, ActionSA, the Freedom Front Plus, the IFP and the African

Christian Democratic Party.

But let’s take a step back.

Last week, it emerged that new

COPE mayor Murunwa Makwarela had seemingly faked an insolvency rehabilitation certificate a document of the high court after it emerged that he had been declared insolvent and was therefore unfit for public office.

Makwarela was the ANC/EFF candidate for the post and was elected by secret ballot despite the governing coalition having a majority.

Eight coalition councillors, potentially even including some from the DA, had clearly voted with the ANC/EFF alliance for Makwarela and then things took an even crazier turn.

The coalition parties decided to try to smoke out the errant councillors by conducting polygraph tests, even though they do not stand up to legal scrutiny. The results are now the basis for a further investigation to find the “traitors”.

ActionSA has confirmed that four may have come from its ranks, and there is a strong possibility that some came from the DA, as there has been unhappiness among Tshwane leaders over the parachuting in of former MP Cilliers Brink as mayoral

Tcandidate after the resignation of the DA’s Randall Williams in February.

Another tantalising facet to this already sordid tale is that today, criminal charges are set to be brought against a councillor for offering a coalition member the equivalent of about R2m from his salary in return for voting with the ANC/EFF coalition. The councillor who allegedly made the offer is from a tiny party called Defenders of the People, or DOP. It will not be difficult to identify the councillor, since the party holds just one seat and the individual has allegedly been promised a position on the mayoral committee in the ANC/EFF coalition. The inducement was for a proportion of their salary when they make it to that post, a gut-wrenching sign of the desperate stomach politics at play, if true.

Then, at Monday’s election of the speaker, the unthinkable and downright mad happened: the DA’s 69 votes were spoilt because the entire caucus had been instructed to mark their ballots with a number instead of an “X”. It was mind-blowing. The DA did this in an attempt to prevent any of its councillors from voting with the ANC/EFF and presumably to smoke out the traitors. It failed spectacularly.

When the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) deemed the ballots spoilt, the DA threatened court action. It is important to note that the IEC was simply providing technical assistance to the city manager, who is legally responsible for the election of the speaker. DA lawyers subsequently warned party leaders they would probably lose if they went to court.

It was an astonishing blunder by the DA, which should have sought legal advice on its tactic before the vote. “I can tell you now, the DA has no leg to stand on,” a former IEC source tells the FM. Lawyers for ActionSA have come to the same conclusion.

The next step for the coalition is a motion of no confidence in the ATM speaker, and it knows it will be able to get the required signatures. The coalition is more confident in its ability to remove the speaker this way as the vote would not involve a secret ballot.

It’s clear that stomach and power politics are large and in charge in the capital city, and while it may be gripping theatre for insiders, it leaves residents in the dust as distant, impotent observers.

Smaller parties at the heart of coalition collapses in many councils should be wary of throwing around their newfound weight. The chaos in Tshwane and elsewhere plays neatly into the narrative of the larger parties particularly the ANC and the DA that coalitions are the antithesis of good governance.

If the electorate buys in to this narrative, the parties now playing god could soon find themselves in the cold.