By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) councillor Tania Campbell has been removed in a no-confidence motion as the mayor of Ekurhuleni.
Out of a total of 217 councillors, 126 voted in favour of the motion, while 91 voted against it.
This is the second time she has been removed as mayor. In October last year, Campbell was kicked out but later reinstated by the South Gauteng high court.
Campbell was voted in after the 2021 local government elections with the help of the EFF, which at the time wanted to keep the ANC away from the mayoral chain. It was the first time Ekurhuleni had been governed by a party other than the ANC.
She had been at the helm of the metro for 16 months.
However, on Thursday councillors convened to debate her standing and announced that her alleged failures were the reason for the motion of no confidence fielded by the African Transformation Movement (ATM).
In the debate, the ANC’s Khehla Madlala lambasted Campbell for “failing to provide strategic direction” in the city, alleging that her leadership aggravated inequality and brought about no developmental ideas.
ActionSA councillors, who abandoned the DA multiparty coalition in November last year, said that despite Campbell not being perfect the ANC tenure before her taking over was worse.
“If we have a choice between Campbell’s problematic leadership, and the ANC’s outright awful leadership, we choose problematic,” said councillor Michael Basch, who added that the party left the coalition because of deteriorating service delivery.
The ANC, EFF and a group of smaller political parties brought forward the motion and supported its adoption.
The ANC’s strategy is to retain Gauteng and take control of all its municipalities before the 2024 general elections.