Gumede creates new headache for ANC in council

AXED former eThekwini municipality mayor, Zandile Gumede has retained her seat as an ordinary proportional representation (PR) councillor in the municipality, placing the new incoming mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, in an awkward position.

After being on leave for almost three months, Gumede and her exco team resigned on Monday, paving the way for the new leadership.

However, her decision to only surrender her mayoral chain and retain her crucial seat as a councillor has placed the ANC in the council in a double dilemma. Firstly, it is bringing in three new faces, Kaunda as mayor, Belinda Scott as deputy and Weziwe Thusi as speaker, yet it has only got two vacancies in the council.

Secondly, according to Durban-based independent analyst Thabani Khumalo, Gumede’s presence will overshadow the new mayor and expose the party’s prevailing divisions.

Party spokesperson in the province, Ricardo Mthembu, confirmed that Gumede was returning as a councillor. He said they were “working” on the issue of accommodating one of the three new faces.

“They are still councillors because they only resigned in the positions they were assigned to, but not as councillors. In order to be a mayor you first have to be a councillor. The ANC will make a plan, we are working on that. She will continue to be an ordinary councillor until the ANC decides where she will be deployed. As for now, the ANC has not decided,” Mthembu said.

Gumede’s main supporter, Mzomuhle Dube, said that Gumede was returning as an ordinary councillor as the laws governing municipalities allowed her to keep her seat. He said under the current circumstances, the ANC had to sacrifice someone in order to pave a way for one of the three candidates.

“If the (former) mayor resigned, it would have made things easy, but now she is staying put as an ordinary councillor,” Dube said.

“It is not known how much support she has within the council and how she is going to use that support to deal with the new mayor – nobody knows,” he said, adding that it was possible that Gumede’s sympathisers might abstain on certain matters or vote with the opposition when confidentiality was guaranteed.

Khumalo said another dilemma for the new mayor and the party was the possibility that Gumede might bounce back as the ANC eThekwini regional chairperson and overshadow the incumbent even more.

Mdu Nkosi, an Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) councillor who sits on the exco, said while the party was happy to see the back of Gumede and her ANC exco team, they were not happy that the ANC took so long to act. He said that they found it unfortunate that the ANC was more worried with its internal fights than the citizens of the city and as a result they would not back the ruling party’s candidates.

“If there are candidates from the opposition rising to take on ANC candidates we have to support them because the ANC has shown us that they don’t care. They have failed the people of eThekwini and the entire province,” he said.