Mncedi Ndzwanana elected new Tshwane speaker

Mncedi Ndzwanana, from the African Transformation Movement, has been elected speaker of the Tshwane council. A special council sitting began on Monday morning and concluded its business in the early hours of Tuesday.

Ndzwanana, whose party has one seat in the council, received support from the ANC-EFF alliance and minority parties, receiving 105 votes.

He beat the DA-led multiparty candidate Kholofelo Morudi from ActionSA, who only received 37 votes.

The DA caucus’s 69 ballots were all disqualified and marked as spoilt because it is alleged the party's councillors were assigned a number (1-69) and instructed to vote using that number — instead of the usual ‘X’ — for the party agent to be able to identify if any caucus member did not vote according to the mandate given.

As a result, the IEC marked these votes as spoilt, resulting in Ndzwanana’s victory.

The council meeting was marred by drama and delays due to the termination of membership of a former ActionSA councillor, Nkele Molapo, for her “friendly relations” with another ousted former member, Abel Tau.

Molapo challenged her ousting through an application for a court interdict to suspend her vacancy and allow her to participate in the council sitting. Parties in council sought to defend Molapo, saying ActionSA had unjustly removed her.

City manager Johann Mettler sought legal advice, which took up most of the day, and the outcome from the lawyers was that Molapo’s court action would have no bearing on whether the meeting continued. The council sitting resumed in the late afternoon.

There was another disruption when Gauteng premier and ANC provincial chair Panyaza Lesufi arrived at the gallery to observe council proceedings. DA members could be heard saying: “The people of Gauteng are waiting for services but here you are interfering in our council business.” Lesufi did not respond to detractors and, instead, smiled and waved at visibly furious DA members.

After the conclusion of voting and Ndzwanana’s election as speaker, DA caucus leader Cilliers Brink said the party did not sign off on the results slip and would instead be consulting its lawyers on what legal action it could take to challenge Ndzwanana’s election.

“The purpose of our different marker was clearly placed next to our preferred candidate. It was done for transparency purposes. The intention of the marker was not disregarded because it is against the spoilt ballot legislation, nobody could cite that. It was just disregarded as spoilt which means the candidate was not intentionally indicated.

“In this case electoral law allows us to place whatever mark within the confines of that little box — whether it is an initial, a circle, a number — as long as we don’t exceed that box the vote is valid.

“What happened here is a serious irregularity and we will contest the outcome,” said Brink, as multiparty coalition members walked out of the meeting.

Ndzwanana said the DA took an independent decision to vote the way they did and he was not bothered by their intention to contest the outcome.

“I’m not here to be liked by them. I’m here to oversee service delivery for the people of Tshwane,” said Ndzwanana.

The new Tshwane speaker said he would be bringing about a change in the culture of the chamber to stabilise the city.

“I will recognise everybody as equal. As a speaker I mustn’t have a minority or majority party. I must have parties that are willing to form unity in the city,” said Ndzwanana.

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