Opposition parties stage coup in Knysna

Published Dec 6, 2006

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In a major coup, a coalition of minority parties has wrested control of the town council here from the majority ANC.

The working relationship of the groups - the DA, Knysna Community Forum (KCF), Independent Civics Organisation of South Africa (Icosa) and the Independent Democrats - has been brokered at a provincial level.

Councillors here were informed only two hours before the council was to meet to elect an executive mayor to succeed the ANC's Joy Cole, who has resigned.

The DA's Doris Wakeford-Brown, 57, a retired homeopath who has lived in Sedgefield for 10 years and served as councillor for the past six, was elected executive mayor by a one-vote majority.

Donald Kemoetie, of the KCF whose party supported the recent Hornlee land invasion, in which backyard dwellers laid claim to vacant land by pegging sites was elected deputy mayor.

Many Hornlee residents were in the gallery, and applauded loudly when Kemoetie's name was announced, calling "Yes, yes! God bless you!"

At a press conference called by the alliance after the meeting, DA chief whip Richard Dawson said the development had caught him by surprise and that he had been informed only at 7.15am on Tuesday.

"Parties look at the position throughout the province and act accordingly," he said.

Knysna has been run by an ANC-DA coalition since the March local government elections.

But Dawson said: "The reality is that the ANC had not yet signed the working relationship agreement with us. (It) has been on the table since April and contained checks and balances.

"We requested over and over that the ANC sign, but they did not."

Icosa provincial leader Petrus Roodtman said negotiations between the parties had begun after the March elections.

"We have come to an agreement with smaller parties to run four municipalities.

"Knysna is the fifth, the central Karoo will be the sixth and we have plans to control six more municipalities in the Western Cape."

ANC chief whip Eleanore Bouw, who had been expected to assume the mayoral chain, said the development marked the end of the relationship between the ANC and DA.

"It was a relationship we thought ensured stability and development. Many times we talked about the level of maturity we had reached. But we were living in a fool's paradise."

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