Workers celebrate as Cilliers Brink is ousted as Tshwane mayor ...
Democratic Alliance mayor Cilliers Brink was removed through a vote of no confidence brought by the ANC and supported by ActionSA. (Frennie Shivambu/Gallo Images)
City of Tshwane employees celebrated openly on Thursday as Democratic Alliance (DA) mayor Cilliers Brink was removed through a vote of no confidence brought by the ANC and supported by ActionSA.
“We are free from the monsters,” shouted one worker, as Brink left the building after the vote, which left the city with 14 days to elect a new mayor.
Brink was ousted in a vote which was backed by ActionSA — the DA’s former coalition partner — the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and smaller parties in the council.
A total of 120 councillors voted for the removal of Brink, while 87 voted for him to stay and one councillor from the Inkatha Freedom Party, who was part of the executive in his council, abstained.
City workers stood clapping and cheering outside the city offices as Brink left, many following him as he made his way out of the complex.
Members of the South African Municipal Workers Union have been at war with Brink since he took office, accusing his administration of being anti-worker and of refusing to meet their salary demands.
Brink was removed despite a last-minute attempt by the DA national leadership to convince the ANC top brass to allow him to keep his position.
ANC Tshwane regional secretary George Matjila told the Mail & Guardian that the DA had been “arrogant” in the negotiations and had insisted on running Tshwane alone without sharing power with his party.
Matjila said the ANC at national level had only held talks with the DA around forming a coalition in Tshwane but that the DA’s demands had been unreasonable.
“Once you start saying you want to take charge and give us [the city of] Ekurhuleni, the ANC, as we speak, has Ekurhuleni. In the negotiations themselves, the DA was seen as being arrogant,” Matjila said.
A source in ActionSA told the M&G the party would get the mayor and five MMC positions, while the ANC would get three MMCs and the deputy mayor post. The EFF would get two MMC positions.
The source said this was the agreement the parties had reached before the ANC Tshwane regional leaders met their national leadership on Wednesday.
“This is what we agreed on but the ANC met yesterday, so we don’t know what the position is now but, as far as we know, the agreement has not changed,” they said.
In a statement, DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga said ActionSA had disrupted the course of progress and unity that the Tshwane multiparty coalition government had worked tirelessly to build.
He said ActionSA’s “backstabbing” played right into the hands of the ANC’s power hunger.
The ANC had no interest in good governance in Tshwane but wanted to “pillage and steal from a stabilised government” and ActionSA was complicit in the instability which would follow the ANC’s power grab.
“The doomsday coalition has now taken over Tshwane and it will go the same road as Joburg and Ekurhuleni. A future of urban decay and service delivery failure lies ahead for the good citizens of Tshwane,” Msimanga said.
“Once parties get a scent of what they perceive to be power, evidently, they sacrifice constitutional principles for the fulfilment of misplaced personal vendettas.”
