DA calls urgent caucus meeting to discuss Joburg mayorship

The DA has called an urgent meeting of its Johannesburg council caucus to decide on its approach for Friday’s special council meeting, which is expected to elect a new mayor after the resignation of Al Jama-ah’s Kabelo Gwamanda.

EFF Gauteng chair Nkululeko Dunga said it would like to continue to serve on the mayoral committee when a new mayor was elected.

DA Johannesburg caucus leader Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku said on Tuesday evening that the party had yet to decide whether it would support the election of ANC mayoral candidate Dada Morero or field its own candidate.

She said she had “engaged with” the DA’s national leadership, and the Johannesburg caucus would finalise its position on Wednesday night.

“We only received the notice very late because the mayor’s announcement did not give a time when it is effected. For us, this was a concern because that meant the mayoral committee is not resolved ... We have not had a chance to sit as a caucus. We have 71 councillors. I have engaged with our provincial and national leadership ... we will be engaging and discussing our approach,” she said.

Dunga said the EFF had proved itself in local government, having led the mayoral council in the community safety and health departments.

“We are hopeful that there will be a consideration of the EFF having looked at the track record, particularly in the City of Johannesburg, and our reaffirmation of a commitment to ensuring that there is the constitution of a government that delivers services to the people of Joburg,” he said.

“There are fundamentals that the EFF will always subject itself to, and that is to ensure that there’s a candidate that is credible, that has a great track record in terms of service delivery, that is an activist and has a deep understanding and a deep love for the people of Johannesburg. Those are things that we would look at supporting,” said Dunga.

The ANC has 91 seats in the 270-seat council. The party will have enough votes with the EFF, ActionSA, Patriotic Alliance and the IFP to install Morero as mayor on Friday.

“I would figure that the engagement is between the ANC and ActionSA, and if they get it right, it will still require some level of engagement with ourselves and other political parties to constitute a majority for it to be tabled before the council,” said Dunga. 

“From where we are standing Margaret Arnold remains the speaker of the council, and she comes from the AIC, which was a position that we had agreed upon with the ANC and other like-minded political parties.”

This could signal that ActionSA may not get the support it is hoping for to secure the position of speaker. Some in the ANC, especially in the Johannesburg region, are not in full support of installing an ActionSA speaker.

However, ActionSA chair Michael Beaumont said on Tuesday that he was confident the party would prevail. 

“It appears ActionSA will take up seats in committees in Johannesburg as well as the position of speaker, and effectively we are poised to participate in a constructive manner in this government, lending our votes, issue by issue, to this government on the merits of the issue at hand.”

Beaumont said that with 44 seats in the council, ActionSA was in a comfortable position and would walk away if the ANC reneged on the deal for speaker.

TimesLIVE