By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng has announced it is backing its national spokesperson Cilliers Brink for the position of mayor in Tshwane.
Brink was presented as the final candidate at a meeting the DA and its coalition partners held on Tuesday.
Former mayor Randall Williams resigned last week, forcing the DA and its coalition partners to seek a replacement.
The coalition partners confirmed their willingness to support Brink but were stern on reservations about service delivery priorities.
DA Gauteng chairperson Solly Msimanga admitted that the incoming mayor faces a “daunting task ahead”.
“The combination of lockdown, the period of unlawful ANC administration, poor financial decisions, and prolonged stage 6 load-shedding has had a devastating impact on Tshwane’s finances,” said Msimanga.
The provincial leader also alleged that the coalition was “under constant attack from the ANC and EFF”, which required “sustained effort to hold the coalition parties together”, citing that Brink was the best person for the job and could execute it with distinction.
Brink, a University of Pretoria law graduate, is no stranger to the municipality, having served as a councillor in 2011 and group corporate and shared services MMC from 2016-2019.
Since then, Brink had moved to parliament, and represented the official opposition party as national spokesperson and as co-operative governance and traditional affairs [Cogta] portfolio committee member.