The Tshwane metro is set to elect a new mayor on Wednesday after DA councillor Cilliers Brink, who held the position for 18 months, was removed via an ANC-sponsored no-confidence vote on September 26.
While the ANC was reportedly talking to the Freedom Front Plus to secure its support ahead of the special council meeting, DA federal council chair Helen Zille told Business Day: “Our party is clear: we will put Cilliers Brink as our mayoral candidate.”
FF Plus spokesperson Wouter Wessels, according to the Sunday Times, confirmed the ANC had reached out to the party, but he insisted there was no agreement yet in place.
ANC Tshwane chair Eugene Modise said the party officials would meet over the weekend to deliberate on who the mayoral candidate should be. “We will know by Monday who it’s going to be,” he said.
Modise and former regional chair Kgosi Maepa have been touted as possible Tshwane mayors.
Brink’s removal was expected as the ANC, ActionSA and EFF bloc have 117 of the council’s 214 seats. His removal came after last-minute ANC-DA talks failed.
ActionSA was initially part of the DA-led multiparty coalition governing Tshwane, holding the deputy mayor position through Nasiphi Moya and other mayoral committee positions until it fell out with the DA. ActionSA’s senate opted to cut ties with the DA after months of tension.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba, who previously said the party would nominate Moya as its mayoral candidate, said on Sunday: “At this point, we can’t deal with sensitive matters of national interest through the media. A mayor is going to be elected on Wednesday, as to who that will be, we ask the media to give us space to deal with that.”
DA Gauteng leader and former Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga has said the party would field Brink to continue making progress in the work he had begun to turn around the metro, which had been governed by DA-led coalitions since 2016.
Under Brink Tshwane's audit outcome improved for the first time in years. That was no mean feat given the state of the city’s finances. It owes Eskom more than R3bn and there are doubts over its ability to fund future operations, according to the latest report by auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke.
“The constant changing of mayors, without regard to certainty and consistency in policy and enhancing the capacity of municipal administrations, is a cause of not a cure for deteriorating municipal governance and service delivery,” Msimanga said. “And it is the ANC, with the help of ActionSA, who chose chaos instead of co-operation with the DA while Tshwane’s financial recovery is still at a fragile point.”
In the 2021/22 financial year, the metro received an adverse audit opinion. In 2022/23 it registered irregular expenditure of R10bn, though its audit opinion improved to a qualified one.
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