DURBAN - THE DA in eThekwini believes the municipal council will be very complicated to manage and would require an experienced hand.
The party, which received the second-highest number of votes in the local government elections, said it would field one of its most experienced councillors to contest for the position of Speaker.
The DA said it would put forward Thabani Mthethwa for the position when council was convened.
The eThekwini Municipality is set to convene its first council meeting today following the local government elections that saw the support of ANC drop below 50%.
It was widely reported yesterday that the race for mayor was between Thabani Nyawose and the incumbent Mxolisi Kaunda. However, according to sources close to the talks, the ANC was still divided on which candidate should lead the city. Voting for the top three positions is expected to be via a secret ballot.
The ANC has managed to hang on to the province’s only metro due to the endorsement it received from the IFP.
Sources within the IFP said yesterday it was still waiting to learn from the party’s negotiators at national level whether the support in eThekwini council would be unconditional or if the party would be rewarded with certain positions.
The DA said it would also contest the three top positions, with DA caucus leader Nicole Graham saying she would contest the mayoral position and another member of the party’s executive committee standing as a candidate for the position of deputy mayor.
Graham said that they would contest the elections despite the little chance of success.
Mthethwa said the ANC was responsible for many of the challenges faced by the city and all the smaller parties should come together and keep it away from power. “You cannot expect the problem to be a source of the solution.”
He said if elected as Speaker he was experienced enough to handle all the challenges that would come with running such a diverse council with many parties, some of them new. He said the position came with a responsibility of ensuring that councillors were equipped to deliver services to the community.
ANC KZN spokesperson Nhlakanipho Ntombela said the initial deal brokered by the provincial leadership with smaller parties had fallen through, following the announcement of a deal with the IFP last week. This, he added, was likely to affect future relations with smaller parties.
Meanwhile, the ANC yesterday assured residents of hung municipalities across the country that the party would form governments with their interests at heart.
The party held its extended national executive committee (NEC) meeting in Pretoria amid protests by staff who have not been paid since August.
“The coalition deals we are doing, we are making them in the interests of our people. The ANC is entertaining coalition arrangements that will allow it to bring about stability in municipalities,” ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe said outside the NEC meeting.
He assured ANC voters that the coalitions that had been formed were formed on the prescripts of good governance.
According to Mabe, ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile and deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte were expected to give a report on which parties the ANC had been able to agree with, and the kind of coalition arrangements that were on the table in hung municipalities across the country.
On the disputes over the nomination of councillor candidates that had been raging over the past weeks, Mabe said the ANC was committed to resolving the disputes and was not going to renege on its promises.
THE MERCURY