Kabelo Gwamanda, mayor of Johannesburg, SA’s richest and largest city, is set to face a motion of no confidence this week after only four months in the position.
He is set to face a no-confidence vote on Thursday — courtesy of ActionSA. Meanwhile, the DA plans to move for an amendment to the motion of no confidence in Gwamanda and instead call for the dissolution of the council.
Gwamanda is a councillor of Al Jama-ah, which has three seats in the 270-seat Joburg council. There have been increasing calls for him to step down, with opposition councillors arguing he is not suitably qualified to lead the metro.
“The amendment will call for the motion to be postponed until November 2, when two years have elapsed and the council will be legally entitled to dissolve itself,” Fred Nel, the chair of the DA in Gauteng, said.
Gwamanda’s election marked the sixth time political power has changed hands in the metro since 2021 as warring political parties in the city, which has been governed through various coalitions since 2016, battle it out for the mayoral chain.
The ANC, which has set its sights on winning an outright majority in the 2024 national elections despite polls showing that its electoral fortunes may decline below 50%, is set to launch a review of its 2019 elections manifesto.
The party’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, will convene the main review process in Soweto on Saturday. This will be followed by provincial rallies throughout September. The ANC is expected to launch its election manifesto in January 2024 during its annual birthday celebrations.
The EFF has also begun preparing for the elections as it aims to increase its share of the electoral vote. The decade-old opposition party this weekend held its quarterly strategy meeting at which it was decided that its top leadership structures should be converted to election task forces.
The primary responsibility of the election task forces, which will be headed by party leader Julius Malema, is to “organise, mobilise for and co-ordinate all work in relation to elections”, Malema told reporters on Sunday.
Deputy president Paul Mashatile will this week undertake an official visit to South Sudan as the country prepares to hold its elections in 2024. Mashatile, who was appointed by Ramaphosa as a special envoy to the East African county, will meet South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and other leaders during his official visit.
The visit is aimed at “taking stock of the latest developments in the implementation of the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, to monitor preparations for the national elections, to recommit SA’s support for the transition in South Sudan and to further strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries,” Mashatile’s spokesperson, Vukani Mde, said in a statement.
In parliament, the Reserve Bank and the Prudential Authority are expected to brief the standing committee on finance in the National Assembly on their annual reports. The central bank is also expected to use the opportunity on Wednesday to expand on its report into the theft at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm.
The Reserve Bank last week released its findings into the theft, clearing Ramaphosa of exchange control violations regarding the theft of $580,000 in cash from Phala Phala in February 2020.
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