CAPE TOWN- An EFF councillor in the Matzikama Municipality has landed in hot water for voting for the DA and Freedom Front Plus during a Council meeting on Monday.
Xolani Tshetu, who is the party’s ward 3 councillor, confirmed he voted for members of the parties. However, he refused to answer any further questions.
The Patriotic Alliance (PA), Freedom Front Plus and the EFF attended the meeting, where the parties voted for the positions of mayor, deputy mayor and speaker, and the DA won all three positions.
Tshetu said he had been advised not to speak to the media as yet, but would be able to issue a statement on Thursday.
Speaking during a press conference on Tuesday, EFF leader Julius Malema said: “I am told the councillor of the EFF there said he's not going to get a mandate from the EFF and he's going to vote in any way he wishes.
“He will know if his ancestors are powerful or not after this press conference because no one votes according to his conscience. The people who want to vote according to their own conscience form their own small-anyana parties everywhere in South Africa and no one is bothering them.
“If you want to be in the EFF and represent the EFF you will follow the party line,” Malema said.
A councillor, who spoke on the basis of anonymity, said Tshetu said that the DA was the “better devil”.
DA Western Cape leader Albert Fritz said they had no idea the member was going to vote for them.
“We had no idea the EFF was going to vote for our mayoral candidate in Matzikama. There was certainly no deal with the EFF, or any discussions on how they would vote. We have no control over the way other parties choose to vote and can only assume they believe our mayor was the best person for the job,” Fritz said.
Separately, the DA has accused PA leader Gayton McKenzie's decision of joining an ANC coalition government in Joburg as being influenced by his love for money, tenders and ’jobs for his pals’.
The damning allegations were made by party leader John Steenhuisen and Federal Council chairperson Helen Zille following McKenzie’s U-turn on supporting opposition parties to form a coalition government in the City of Joburg and Tshwane.
The outburst against McKenzie followed his announcement on Tuesday that his party had agreed to form a coalition government with the ANC in Joburg.
The PA secured eight seats in the City of Joburg.
Steenhuisen said a government in Tshwane could be formed by a coalition of the DA, ACDP, Cope and Freedom Front Plus.
McKenzie said they clinched deals in some municipalities.
“We are 99% done unlike other pirates that are talking - they have a problem that we don’t have. We said at the beginning, we will negotiate with anybody - if the AWB still existed, we would have been able to talk to them.
“As I said to DA’s Helen Zille and ActionSA’s president, Herman Mashaba, as a leader of PA I don’t have the luxury to say we must go to opposition benches until 2024, because the people I represent and who voted for us don’t have jobs now, no food or money now, so I can’t come and put my ego first,” said McKenzie.
McKenzie said they had met leaders of the ANC and had spoken about power-sharing agreements.
“We have agreed that we will support the ANC in Johannesburg. We will take two MMC seats. We have spoken in Ekurhuleni and we will get one MMC seat. We will take a seat at Emfuleni municipality and take two MMC seats at Rand West. We will take two MMC seat at JB Marks and two MMC seats at Knysna. We have concluded with the ANC and other small partners,” McKenzie said.
Cape Times