Africa-Press – South-Africa. At the eleventh hour on Tuesday, the ANC’s 51 councillors in the Mangaung council wrote to Speaker Maryke Davies, of the DA – just a day before a special sitting met to elect a new mayor – and informed her that they would not be attending.
The councillors, through their chief whip, cited concerns over their safety as the reason for not attending.
Earlier on Tuesday, council workers had converged outside the Bram Fischer municipal building in Bloemfontein to protest over unpaid overtime.
Enraged by this, the DA placed the blame squarely on the ANC, saying the coincidental timing of the protest action reeked of political interference in the looming mayoral vote.
“Protesting municipal officials prevented councillors, employees, and members of the public from entering the building to stop a council meeting that was scheduled to take place… [in a] display of disregard for the South African Constitution and the rule of law,” said the DA in a media statement.
The party also questioned the failure of law enforcement officials to intervene timeously:
Mangaung ANC spokesperson Ncamile Nxangisa said there was no truth to the allegations being made by the DA.
“The DA is trying to grandstand, and their comments show that they do not take the issues being raised by the workers of Mangaung seriously. The workers’ strike has been going on for the past two weeks, and a day before yesterday’s council sitting, they were there demonstrating around the municipal building.”
Nxangisa added:
He added that the ANC would always attend council sittings, as the party respected democratic processes.
“We will forever be there. Remember, as the ANC, we believe we are the champions of democracy and don’t only support it when it suits us. We were supposed to be there when the speaker called us, whether it was a DA councillor or whichever political party.
“After our caucus a day before yesterday, we made serious reflections around the safety of our councillors, and through the chief whip of the ANC, the chief whip was able to make a collective apology. An apology was accepted, and he cited security reasons and advised the speaker not to convene with the council because of the security reasons given what happened on Tuesday. They were serious indications that this would continue,” said Nxangisa.
The DA called on the police and the Cogta MEC to intervene, as the continued delay in electing a mayor was detrimental to the City’s functioning.
News24 had earlier reported that the ANC was scrambling ahead of the mayoral vote to enlist help from smaller opposition parties to vote with it.
This came as the party remained unsure that its councillors would toe the party line and vote for its preferred candidate Umkhonto we Sizwe veteran Gregory Nthatisi, after some of its councillors broke ranks last month and voted for Davies as speaker.
The ANC, which enjoys a clear majority with 51 seats in the 101-seat council, lost out to the DA during the vote for the council speaker position, despite the DA only having 26 seats.
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