By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC)’s Mxolisi Kaunda has been elected mayor of eThekwini.
Kaunda won with 113 votes, beating his nearest rival — the DA’s Nicole Graham — who got 104 votes.
This was the second attempt to elect a council leadership after the first attempt was abandoned after electricity at the venue tripped, leading to a blackout. The adjournment led to protests and rowdy scenes.
But the adjournment took place only after the the ANC had nabbed a landslide win for the position of speaker. The ANC’s Thabani Nyawose received 103 of the 199 votes by councillors.
The ANC lost outright control of the metro in the 2021 local government elections, but was first past the post in the mayoral election. It won 96 seats and needs 16 seats to govern. The council has 222 seats.
The DA won 58 seats, the EFF 24 and the IFP 16.
Meanwhile Philani Mavundla from the Abantu Batho Congress (ABC) has been the biggest surprise in eThekwini’s council today.
Mavundla replaced the ANC’s Ntokozo Sibiya on the EXCO seat and he had struck a deal with ANC in exchange for his support for their mayoral candidate. .
He is a popular property mogul who is no stranger to politics. He previously held a mayoral position in the Umvoti Municipality in 2011. He has been a bit of a political chameleon first starting off at the ANC, then moving to the NFP before he launched ABC in January 2020.
He has also previously boasted that he funded former President Jacob Zuma during his corruption trial. He is now at the cusp of deputy mayorship in one of the largest metros in the country.
Elsewhere after helping vote in an EFF Speaker, ANC councillors in Mamusa Local Municipality in the North West toed the party line at a late-night council meeting to see the election of the party’s candidate as mayor.
The election of ANC councillor Seitebaleng Chelechele as mayor in Mamusa came after a council sitting was postponed early on Tuesday.
ANC councillors had delayed attending the council meeting.
On Monday, a group of ANC councillors assisted the EFF in electing its candidate, Olebeng Mogorosi, as speaker of the council, even though the ANC won the majority of council seats.
The ANC has nine seats in the 16-member Mamusa local municipality council.
ANC councillors were roped into a meeting by the party’s provincial structure on Tuesday, where they were made to apologise for supporting an EFF councillor for the speaker position.
Chelechele was elected mayor in a late-night council meeting on Tuesday.