Africa-Press – South-Africa. City of Tshwane Speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana has argued in papers filed in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that he has the legal right to chair a council meeting which will hear a motion of no confidence in his leadership.
Ndzwanana filed responding affidavits to the DA and its coalition partners’ court application, which seeks to interdict him from chairing a council meeting on Wednesday.
The council meeting will hear a motion of no confidence in Ndzwanana, but the DA insists he cannot be legally allowed to chair the meeting. The High Court application will be argued on Tuesday.
The DA wants the court to interdict Ndzwanana from chairing the meeting, and for city manager Johann Mettler to chair the extraordinary council sitting.
The party and its coalition partners – ActionSA, Freedom Front Plus and the IFP – also want him to be interdicted from disrupting the meeting.
Ndzwanana adjourned a council meeting last month, intended to hear the motion of no confidence, citing his concerns about the petition filed by the DA and its coalition partners.
That decision angered the DA.
Ndzwanana argued, in his opposing affidavit to the application, that he had the legal right to chair council meetings unless he was incapacitated to do so, or an acting council speaker had been appointed.
He added that he had not acted unlawfully in any previous council meeting he had chaired, and that the applicants – the coalition partners – had no legal basis for asking that he be removed from the position.
He said:
The speaker asked the court to dismiss the cost order requested by the coalition partners.
The EFF in Tshwane was also cited in the application because the DA and its coalition partners want the party to be interdicted from disrupting the council meeting.
Mayor Cilliers Brink wrote an affidavit supporting the interdict, saying the EFF had in the past demonstrated its willingness to engage in violent behaviour in the council.
The EFF, in response to the allegations, said the DA was isolating political parties that did not form part of the coalition, and without any legal basis.
“The applicants seek an interdict against councillors who are not part of the DA-led coalition, with no valid basis. This is motivated by the politics of the applicants. They have failed to show that EFF councillors are guilty of disruptive conduct,” the party stated in its answering affidavit.
The court application will be argued on Tuesday.
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