DA accuses Joburg council speaker of bias

The city’s councillors failed to elect a new mayor to succeed Thapelo Amad during Tuesday’s sitting.

Numerous caucus breaks led to Makhubele postponing the election to Friday, leaving the country’s economic hub without a mayor for the next few days.

“What we saw happen yesterday was delay tactics from the ANC block,” said the DA’s mayoral candidate Mpho Phalatse.

“It would appear though they had four potential mayoral candidates and could not agree amongst themselves as to which one they are going to field. The speaker's decision to adjourn the meeting is unjustified because we still had a quorum and we still could have continued to elect a mayor.

“She is conflicted herself, she is one of the four provincial candidates, and we believe that her decision was biased as she is a beneficiary of ongoing ANC negotiations.”

Phalatse says the ANC coalition will only emerge victorious if they are all able to agree on one candidate.

“From what it looks like, should they agree on a candidate their numbers would be good because they are currently in the majority. However, they are finding it difficult to agree on a single candidate.

“It looks as though there will be another meeting on Friday and hopefully by then they will have made up their mind and we can go ahead with the elections,” added Phalatse.  

Meanwhile, ActionSA has accused the ANC and EFF of delay tactics.

“ActionSA is extremely angry by the ANC-EFF coalition's theatrics in the City of Johannesburg council which has again left the city without a mayor to the detriment of service delivery to the city’s more than four million residents,” the party said in a statement.

“It is clear that the ANC-EFF is concerned about their majority in council and therefore delayed council proceedings costing the City close to R800,000 which could’ve been spent on service delivery.”

Council is set to reconvene on Friday in an effort to elect a new mayor.

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