COPE at odds over Bay council seat

Regional, national spokesmen clash over who will be party’s representative

WHO will occupy COPE’s lone seat in the Nelson Mandela Bay council? The party’s regional and national leaders are at odds over who should represent COPE in the metro council over the next five years.

While COPE’s Bay regional spokesman, Thembelani Kondile, was adamant on Saturday that regional chairman Khwezi Ntshanyana would occupy the seat, national spokesman Dennis Bloem refuted this, saying Siyasanga Sijadu was their new PR councillor.

COPE suffered a devastating blow in the local government elections two weeks ago as it lost major support in the Bay.

Its number of seats in the council dropped from six to one.

Speaking from Numsa’s regional offices in Port Elizabeth on Saturday, Kondile said Ntshanyana was the mayoral candidate in the run-up to the elections and was thus obviously the party’s representative in the council.

He was speaking at a press conference called by smaller political parties in the Bay who have joined forces to form a coalition block.

“As COPE, we have Khwezi Ntshanyana as our mayoral candidate [who] was given to us by our organisation and our constituencies,” Kondile said.

He also pronounced, on behalf of COPE, that the party had joined the Patriotic Alliance and the United Front to form a block to negotiate with either the DA or ANC as a group about forming a coalition government in the metro.

However, Bloem lambasted Kondile, saying he did not have a mandate to speak on behalf of the party.

“We don’t know where, or who, gave Kondile the mandate to speak on behalf of COPE,” Bloem said.

“Siyasanga [Sijadu] is our candidate to represent us in council.

“The person that is on our list and is gazetted is Siyasanga and nobody else.”

Sijadu said as far as she was concerned, she was the only PR candidate for COPE.

“I am not sure where Thembelani gets his information [from], but I think the relevant people to contact will be our national leaders; they may give clarity on that,” she said.

“It would seem that there are certain individuals who had an interest in going into council, but after things did not go accordingly, they are trying to stir up problems and it is not right.

“So, people . . . who are going around wearing COPE T-shirts and doing all sorts of things – ignore them because the fact remains that the name the IEC holds and has endorsed is that of Siyasanga.”

Ntshanyana, on the other hand, said the only reason Sijadu’s name appeared on the Electoral Commission’s PR candidate list was to meet the IEC requirements.

“Siyasanga was only there [IEC list] to meet IEC requirements so that we may have a PR candidate, hence we only had one person. So, no, there is no truth in saying she would be COPE’s representative in council,” Ntshanyana said.

“The central executive committee is meting tomorrow [today] and that determination will be done . . . So COPE still has to make a decision on who will represent it in [council] for the next five years.”