Pretoria - City of Tshwane council speaker Dr Murunwa Makwarela – the sole Cope councillor in the metro – is facing a revolt from the multiparty coalition partners after he refused to convene a special council sitting today.
In a joint media statement issued yesterday by coalition partners, which include ACDP, IFP, ActionSA and Freedom Front Plus, they have accused Makwarela of having aligned himself with the ANC and EFF in a bid to be elected as the next mayor on Tuesday.
This week, Makwarela dismissed suggestions that he harboured ambitions to become the mayor, saying such a position was reserved for the DA, according to the multiparty coalition agreement.
On Wednesday, Makwarela pledged his support to the coalition partners’ mayoral candidate, Cilliers Brink, a former Tshwane councillor and MMC for corporate and shared services. Since 2019, Brink has been a DA MP.
He said: “We believe that this is a step closer to closing that chapter and beginning the work that lies ahead of us. We stand united with our mayor elect, Cilliers Brink and we believe that we will remain true to the priorities that we have agreed as the coalition and part of it is service delivery in the area of water, in the area of electricity.”
However, in a dramatic turn of events yesterday, other coalition parties vowed to pass a vote of no confidence in him for refusing to call an urgent council meeting to elect a new mayor despite a majority of councillors having signed a petition calling for a meeting.
Coalition partners spokesperson Dr Cornè Mulder said in a statement: “The issue at hand is the timing of the election of a new mayor in the City of Tshwane as well as the passing of the adjustment budget. The speaker has scheduled the meeting to elect the new Mayor on February 28, 2023, which will prevent the adjustment budget from being passed by the legislated deadline of the same day.”
Mulder expressed concern that failure to hold an urgent council meeting before February 28 would leave “the door open to the provincial government placing the City of Tshwane under administration, as the premier of Gauteng has already indicated his intention to do so”.
He said the multiparty coalition resolved yesterday morning to send a letter to municipal manager Johann Mettler “in accordance with Section 29 of the Municipal Structures Act, to call a council meeting given that the speaker has refused to comply with a petition of a majority of councillors for a meeting to be called”.
Should Mettler call an urgent council meeting, coalition partners would table a motion of no confidence against Makwarela “for his deliberate actions to place the multiparty coalition at risk and for his disregard of the law in his refusal to call the requisite council meeting”.
Mulder said political parties in the coalition would be ready to approach the courts to compel the calling of a council meeting if necessary.
“This governing multiparty coalition in the City of Tshwane will fight any effort to return the ANC and EFF (to power) through the back door of the municipality. All parties remain committed to fight for the residents of Tshwane and against the greed and personal ambition of yet another Cope speaker,” he said.
In a letter seen by the Pretoria News, Mettler declined to call a council meeting today, saying: “The actual contestation in the correspondence addressed to me is the actual decision by the speaker to call the meeting for February 28. I want to be very clear that the speaker made a decision as he is rightfully entitled to do. The speaker didn’t abscond or unreasonably refuse to make a decision.”
This week, ANC regional secretary George Matjila hinted that a new mayor would not emerge from the DA, but from a different political party. The EFF rejected Brink’s return to Tshwane as a mayoral candidate.
Pretoria News