DAGGERS ARE OUT TO PURGE BRINK FROM THE POSITION OF TSHWANE MAYOR AS ACTIONSA INTENDS QUITTING COALITION

Daggers are out to purge incumbent City of Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink from the mayoral position of the Capital City.

This emerged in a radio interview on Wednesday evening wherein ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba didn’t mince his words as he announced that talks were definitely underway within ActionSA structures for the party to quit the ruling City of Tshwane coalition government headed by the DA, and instead vote with opposition parties to oust Brink from his position as the Capital City’s first citizen.

According to Mashaba, ActionSA has had numerous problems in its coalition relationship with the DA for a long time now.

Mashaba hinted at the unsavoury incident last year in March, whereby “DA Council members deliberately spoiled their ballots so that ActionSA would not assume the position of the Speaker of Council of the City of Tshwane.

On that fateful day on 14 March 2023, DA members in Council used numerals (eg 1, 2, 17) instead of the usual “X” when making a mark on their ballots.

These ballots were declared null and void (spoiled papers) by presiding IEC officials who opined that the voting pattern was as a result of undue influence and that the votes were therefore not cast in a free and fair manner.

This led to the ANC/ EFF alliance candidate Mncedi Ndzwanana winning the voting contest for the position of Council Speaker.

Ndzwanana is a sole representative of the ATM party in the City of Tshwane Council and had been put forward as a compromise candidate by the EFF and the ANC.

Presently there is still no party that has the majority of seats in the Council chambers to outrightly govern the City, even though the ANC has most seats amounting to 75.

The City is being governed by a coalition between the DA, ActionSA and other parties.

The DA has 69 seats, EFF has 23, Cope has 1, ATM has 1, Freedom Front Plus has 17 and ActionSA has 19.

As ActionSA has already indicated that it would be voting against Mayor Brink and the DA, it is therefore a foregone conclusion that Brink won’t be mayor when the vote of no confidence in him is eventually tabled in the Council chambers of the City of Tshwane.

But this will depend on Council members voting according to dictates of their respective parties and not betraying party resolutions as has happened in the past when coming to voting on crucial matters in Council.

Be that as it may, observers are concerned about the fact that Mashaba is only raising the aforementioned gripe against the DA now, 18 months after ActionSA lost the position of the Speaker due to spoiled DA votes.

Some critics opine that Mashaba is actually aggrieved by the DA’s decision at national level to ditch the then highly-spoken-of Moonshot Pact and instead joined the ANC in a Government of National Unity (GNU).

Another factor may be that as ActionSA apparently has a working relationship with the ANC in the City of Joburg as well as in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, this selfsame relationship is now logically being extended to Tshwane, despite the fact that ActionSA is reportedly working together well with the DA as partners in the City of Tshwane Coalition Government.

This state of affairs also means current City of Tshwane Speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana is also not safe in his position as the ANC and ActionSA would obviously share the positions of Mayor and Speaker among themselves should they manage to get rid of Brink.

The intensity of removing Brink from his position is demonstrable in the fact that ANC Regional structures in Tshwane are presently locked in an emergency meeting the agenda of which has not been made public yet, but which by all indications will centre around the envisaged working relationship between the ANC and ActionSA and the ultimate removal of Cilliers Brink as the Mayor.

“No comment,” retorted Tshwane ANC Regional Secretary George Matjila when asked to comment about Mashaba’s statement of intent to remove Brink from office.

“I will respond shortly,” promised DA spokesperson Kwena Moloto when contacted for comment regarding Mashaba’s remarks.