DA’s Cachalia questions vote
Defeated DA mayoral candidate for the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, Ghaleb Cachalia, threatened to lodge a formal complain against the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) yesterday after attempting to challenge his ANC opponent’s eligibility to be elected mayor.
The ANC managed to retain Ekurhuleni by 11 votes yesterday, making the former deputy trade and industry minister and staunch supporter of President Jacob Zuma, Mzwandile Masina, the new mayor. He is also regional chairperson of the ANC in Ekurhuleni.
Through last-minute agreements between the ANC, the Patriotic Alliance , the Independent Ratepayers’ Association and a previous agreement with the Pan Africanist Congress and the African Independent Congress, the party managed to have their candidate and incumbent speaker, Patricia Khumalo, as well as Masina, elected to run the council.
But the event was not without delays.
Councillors from the EFF and the DA said that Masina was not, to their knowledge, confirmed as being off the payroll of Cabinet and parliament at the time of his nomination.
The opposition councillors said this meant that he could not legally be elected mayor.
But Khumalo insisted that not only was Masina legally eligible to stand for the election, by virtue of his resignations, but it was also too late to challenge his nomination because he was already accepted by the IEC as a candidate.
Cachalia repeatedly asked Khumalo to confirm whether Masina was no longer being paid as a deputy minister and member of parliament, to which the speaker gave no direct answer other than to say that Masina would not have made the candidate list if he were not eligible.
Cachalia then rose to announce that he would be laying a formal complaint in a bid to have the proceedings deemed null and void.
Proceedings continued nevertheless and Masina was voted in as mayor.
Ekurhuleni was one of the 27 hung municipalities where no party managed a majority win after the local government elections.