Pretoria - The ANC’s bid in Gauteng to reclaim control of major municipalities appears to be paying dividends for it, except in Tshwane, following the party’s recent embarrassing loss of control after fielding disgraced and fraud-accused Dr Murunwa Makwerela as mayoral candidate in the capital.
Despite the loss, Gauteng ANC chairperson Panyaza Lesufi said the party is well on its way to snatch the DA-led Mogale City Local Municipality. This follows campaigns by the ANC and EFF for motions of no confidence against mayor Tyrone Gray, Speaker Jacqueline Pannal and chief whip Lesego Lekoto.
At the time of going to press last night, the parties, which included the Gauteng Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Mzi Khumalo, were still discussing the reinstatement of 41 councillors of the EFF and ANC, fired by Pannal for allegedly failing to attend council meetings.
The developments in Mogale came just days after the DA suffered another blow following the removal of their coalition government in the West Rand District Municipality, and it being replaced with ANC coalition partners.
The new EFF and ANC partnership saw councillors T Bovungana and B Mahuma, respectively, being elected as executive mayor and chief whip of the West Rand District Council.
Any outcome of the Mogale City debacle in favour of the ANC and EFF, would result in the City of Tshwane being the only metro in Gauteng still under the DA.
Yesterday in Ekurhuleni, the metro council appointed several ANC and EFF councillors into key mayoral positions in the wake of the removal of DA mayor Tania Campbell last month.
Lesufi last month predicted an outright win for his party and the EFF. He also lambasted some of the ANC members who were opposed to the working relationship between the ANC and EFF, especially after the EFF tried to block President Cyril Ramaphosa from addressing Parliament.
“Some members are treating us with disdain, suspicion and are labelling us rebels who sleep with the enemy, forgetting that in coalition politics, you lose the luxury of playing Big Brother that must always get what it wants without compromising.
“We also salvaged Emfuleni after a concerted effort to dislodge the ANC by our coalition partner the PAC and some local civic movements. By the end of next week, we would have reclaimed four new municipalities we lost almost 16 months ago, two metros, one local and one district municipality.
“We lost 10 out of 11 municipalities in Gauteng. We lost three of the metros, two districts and five local municipalities and we peacefully occupied the opposition benches,’ he said.
Lesufi said their provincial conference supported their proposals to work with the EFF to regain control of Gauteng.
“We consulted national, including the NEC subcommittee on Metro Negotiations. We even held a virtual meeting with our national office bearers on our approach to win Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni. We were given the go-ahead by the NEC subcommittee and the national office on one condition – that the ANC must not be worse off out of these arrangements.
“There’s a rented mob that has formulated posters that we want to topple our own president through these coalitions. We state categorically that this PEC has never held a debate on how to remove our president but it has held a discussion after Nasrec to welcome the new leadership of Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa.
“Attempts to create the impression that we hate our president will fail. We will work with our president to ensure that we win the Gauteng convincingly next year,” Lesufi said.
His provincial working committee took a firm decision against one branch chairperson who accused the PEC of plotting and taking a resolution to topple Ramaphosa, Lesufi said. “The PEC has never taken that resolution so this chairperson was charged and suspended for posting lies on social media, Facebook to be specific.”
Pretoria News