Pretoria - The EFF in Tshwane intends to work together with the ANC as part of a campaign to consolidate the black vote ahead of the 2024 general election.
Regional party leader Obakeng Ramabodu pronounced the EFF’s stance during a protest by the Mamelodi flood victims outside Tshwane House last Thursday.
Accompanied by the ANC’s regional leader, Eugene “Bonzo” Modise, he urged protesters to desist from fighting each other on the basis of their affiliations to different parties.
About 150 flood victims were still accommodated at the Nellmapius Community Hall after their shacks at the Mountain View, Mavuso and Willow Farm informal settlements were washed away by a flood last year. They want the government to speed up their relocation.
Ramabodu said: “There’s no time for us to keep fighting. Let’s focus on making black people proud come 2024. We don’t want to hear things like you are fighting with the ANC. Now it is time to close ranks. We are going to close ranks and consolidate a black vote. Here in Tshwane we need a black vote because a white vote is united.”
He cited ActionSA, the FF-Plus and the DA as parties that united a white vote.
Ramabodu further mobilised people to “chase away” Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink and ActionSA president Herman Mashaba whenever they visited their areas.
Referring to Brink, he said: “You saw what they did to him in Hammanskraal. They chased him away. When he comes to your community, chase him away, intimidate him but don’t hurt him. Because chasing a person away is part of a protest.”
He accused Mashaba of being a hypocrite, saying he must be chased away as well.
According to him, Mashaba was brought to lure black votes which the DA was unable to attract.
“Brink refused to come here. He refused to come and receive the memorandum, saying he doesn’t receive a memorandum from people who never made an appointment,” Ramabodu said.
Brink was inside the council chamber, where the EFF demanded that he stepped out to receive a memorandum from the flood victims.
Inside the chamber, the mayor suggested that while he respected the right for people to protest, it must not trample on the “right for legislators like ourselves to have a sitting”.
“No notice was given of this sudden demand for a petition,” he said.
He expressed concern that there was an obstruction of councillors who tried to leave the building during lunchtime, which was a breach of security.
He also said a demand by the EFF for someone to receive a memorandum was politicised after Ramabodu mentioned the DA was useless.
In a bid to ease tension and prevent disruption, council speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana volunteered to receive the memorandum.
He told protesters that he would escalate it to relevant people who needed to attend to it, also promising that he would visit them in Mamelodi to hear their grievances as council speaker.
In council, Ndzwanana faced a motion of no confidence brought against him by ActionSA, but he rejected it.
ActionSA Tshwane regional chairperson Jackie Mathabathe said his party would head to court to overturn Ndzwanana’s unlawful decision to reject the motion on frivolous grounds.
“This is the second occasion in which the speaker has misused the rules to shield himself from the democratic accountability principle of a motion of no confidence. Our approach to the courts is premised on the reality that the multi-party coalition in Tshwane will not achieve stability with an ANC/EFF sponsored speaker at the helm to facilitate their unlawful power grabs,” he said.
Mathabathe said Ndzwanana’s decision highlighted “yet again why he would put his political masters ahead of the principles of good governance”.
“The shenanigans are characteristic of the EFF-ANC unholy alliance and is a clear indication that if Ndzwanana is left to preside over council, the work of council will continue to be frustrated - thereby reducing the efficient operations of the City,” Mathabathe said.
Ndzwanana, a sole councillor of the African Transformation Movement, took up the reins as speaker in March amid controversy sparked by spoiled 69 votes belonging to the DA.
Pretoria News