• Smaller parties in bid to turn Daniels

PATRIOTIC Alliance councillor Marlon Daniels said he did not sleep a wink on Tuesday night as councillors from the smaller opposition parties visited his home trying to persuade him to vote against Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip in today’s motion of no confidence.

Daniels said AIC councillor Tshonono Buyeye, Mkhuseli Mtsila, from the UF, and EFF councillor Zilindile Vena had visited his home at midnight to offer him the mayorship.

“I never slept last night. The parties called me and said there were new developments and they offered me the mayor position should I help them to remove the mayor of Nelson Mandela,” Daniels said.

“Last night [Tuesday] they came with that big bone and we never jumped.”

Daniels tabled the last motion of no confidence against Trollip in November.

It was defeated after the EFF decided to support the DA and its coalition partners, COPE and the ACDP.

Addressing the media yesterday, Daniels said: “The problem with this [new] motion is the arrogance of [EFF leader Julius] Malema and his hatred of white people.”

Daniels said there was no substance in wanting to remove Trollip other than on the basis of his skin colour.

“There’s no substance in wanting to remove the mayor.

“If they came with other substantive reasons to remove him, maybe we’d consider it.

“Julius is promoting genocide,” he said. Buyeye would not confirm whether he had visited Daniels, saying he visited a lot of colleagues and friends.

“Private conversations remain private. I comment on what Marlon [Daniels] is saying and there’s a lot of untruths to what he’s saying,” Buyeye said.

Mtsila said their visit to Daniels’s home had been for “normal persuasion”, and that allegations they had offered Daniels the mayorship were untrue.

“Discussions never reached that level, but we said we’re willing to hear his demands and what he wants.

“He [Daniels] said he’d talk to his party president, but unfortunately the response wasn’t positive,” Mtsila said.

Vena said after speaking to Daniels on the phone, the PA councillor had invited them to his home because he said the matter was too sensitive to discuss over the phone.

Vena accused the PA of always looking for greener pastures and said Daniels had called them over to his house to “make sure there were no hard feelings between himself and the black caucus”.

“We went to his house to show him there were no hard feelings, not because we wanted to offer him the mayorship.”

Speaking in his office in Gelvandale, Daniels said there had never been any animosity between the DA and the PA.

“We’ve worked with the DA before and there’s [bantering] between councillors in chambers and that’s normal, but outside of that arena, there’s never been any animosity,” Daniels said.