By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Democratic Alliance (DA)’s Cilliers Brink has been elected as the new City of Tshwane metropolitan executive mayor.
Brink beat newly sworn-in Congress of the People (Cope) councillor Ofenste Moalusi by 109 to 102 votes.
The metropolitan municipality convened a special meeting in the Tshwane House on Tuesday to vote for a new mayor after failing to do so on two occasions.
Before the voting could start the African National Congress (ANC) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) refused to take part in the process until action was taken against the DA over the 69 votes saga.
Two weeks ago, the DA instructed its 69 councillors to mark ballots with allocated numbers in order to identify which candidate they voted for during the election of the speaker, which took place via secret ballot.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), however, ruled that the party’s move violated its voting guidelines and declared all 69 votes as spoilt ballots.
The EFF, which opened a case against the DA last week, asked council speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana on Tuesday to address the matter before the voting process “as we cannot go ahead as if it’s business as usual”.
No one has the right to discipline anyone assuming that the person has voted for person A or B on a secret ballot. Why is that thing called a secret ballot? You go to the voting booth alone and whatever that happens there you are defended and protected by the Constitution.
“This council must know that every time when [we vote via] secret ballot there are some parties that victimise their members,” Tshwane EFF chairperson Obakeng Ramabodu said on Tuesday.
The ANC/EFF coalition had initially won the day with the election of former Cope councillor Murunwa Makwarela, but this victory was short-lived.
Brink said the City should be turned around to match other areas where the DA governed, like the Western Cape.
He spoke positively about the advantage the multi-party government had to commit to changing things in Tshwane because the coalition was much more stable with a majority in the council.
“We have not been able to keep the core promise of better services, clean, corruption-free government to the extent that we have been able to in other areas in the country, so we must fix that. We must keep the promise,” Brink said.
The first task for the new mayor would be to ensure the appointment of a mayoral committee which can swiftly put forward an adjustment budget due by 14 April.
Brink, a University of Pretoria law graduate, is no stranger to the municipality, having served as a councillor in 2011 and as group corporate and shared services MMC from 2016 to 2019.
Since then, Brink moved to parliament and represented the official opposition party as national spokesperson and as co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) portfolio committee member.