Mayor Msimanga gets to grips with his new life

19/08/2016. Solly Msimanga gestures after he was elected as Executive Mayor of Tshwane. Picture: Masi Losi

19/08/2016. Solly Msimanga gestures after he was elected as Executive Mayor of Tshwane. Picture: Masi Losi

Published Aug 22, 2016

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Pretoria - It has yet to sink in that “EM” or “Mr Mayor” will be Solly Msimanga’s title for the next five years.

He was inaugurated on Friday and is still settling into his new role as executive mayor (EM) of the City of Tshwane and is adjusting to the changes it means to his life, particularly the security detail.

“They call me EM or Mr Mayor... I’m like can’t you just call me Solly?’ They are, like, no we won’t do that’,” Msimanga said in an exclusive interview with the Pretoria News at his home where he was relaxing with his wife Monde and sons aged 10 and 5 on Sunday.

Msimanga said he was still trying to get to grips with the changes because, literally, the life he was used to has changed overnight.

The new security detail comes with a driver as well as a bodyguard, which is new to him. “I’m so used to driving myself, opening my own car door and now that is all gone.”

After his inauguration on Friday, which was attended by DA leader Mmusi Maimane and some high-ranking party representatives as well as personal guests of Msimanga, he celebrated with his wife, mother, siblings and other extended family members at a dinner.

On Saturday he attended an event at the Chinese school, his first official engagement as the city’s new mayor. After all the excitement, today sees the start of an “internal week” when the EM will be meeting with his office staff and senior city officials and making some key decisions, such as who will be his mayoral committee members.

The job has only just begun, but it has been a long time in the making. Msimanga is more than ready for the challenge.

Despite having spent months campaigning for the DA ahead of the August 3 elections, and being the party’s mayoral candidate Msimanga said he had still been shocked by the results.

“We had campaigned so much, and we did not want to be disappointed. Our campaign was done solely with the intention to grow our numbers and that’s what we did. We sort of knew that things would change, but we did not expect that it would be by so much,” he said.

During the intense counting of results, Msimanga started to get a sense of change in the air.

“When we won Ward 4, the first ward that we won that was governed by the ANC, I knew that something was happening.”

And he remembers the news that the DA had won Ward 38 in Mamelodi, which was an ANC stronghold. That gave him the first inkling of how they had done beyond their traditional strongholds and that they could take the metro.

Msimanga was standing alongside Maimane at the IEC results centre as he announced - many said prematurely - that the DA had won Tshwane, at a time when the party was still trailing the ANC.

It begged the question: how did they know?

“We have a statistics model that we use. If you employ that and use your counters (the people who count and sign the ballot results), you get the results that they send you before they even reach the IEC.

“So, they would tell us the results. But obviously they needed to be verified and then we would use our system to configure what the results would be.

“That is why we were able to call even the Nelson Mandela Bay results - it’s a fairly accurate system.”

Msimanga said his elder son Aobokwe, 10, was the first to mention anything about him being a mayor when he went home during vote counting - before the final result was announced.

His son asked if he was the “boss of the city” yet.

He may be the boss of the city, but he is determined not to let it adversely affect his young family, and said he wants to keep his children away from the limelight and maintain as normal a life as possible.

“I don”t want to disrupt my family life. We want to still drop the boys off at school as we have been doing, and help them with homework as well. I will still be the daddy they know.”

His wife Monde resigned from her job earlier this year owing to the pressures she saw after Msimang was named as the DA’s mayoral candidate. She was there in the public gallery on Friday to witness him being sworn in as mayor of the capital.

Now with the added demands on him, including time away from home, she wants to use her time to ensure their home life and that of the boys is as stable as possible.

“Some of his colleagues have asked me to become more involved (in politics), but when I look at his hectic schedule and how much time he will spend away, I worry. My kids are still too young. I want to keep our family as normal as possible,” Monde said.

But Aobokwe seems to have adjusted well already to his father’s new prominent role and now faces increased popularity at school.

“Things have been great. There have been some changes here and there. My friends at school know and some of them have even said I must tell my dad they say hi,” he laughed.

Younger brother Amogelong, 5, seems not to have realised what big change has come in their lives.

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Pretoria News

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