
Johannesburg - As the crucial sitting of the Johannesburg City council draws closer, the DA has made it clear it would not back the ambitious bid by the EFF to take the mayoral seat.
This comes after the EFF last week said it would not back the ANC or the DA when the council meets on Thursday to elect the successor of outgoing mayor Herman Mashaba.
The EFF said it would instead field its own candidate and that any party that backed its candidate would be also supported by the red berets to take over the control of Tshwane. EFF leader Julius Malema said the DA had a bigger responsibility to back the EFF’s mayoral ambitions as the party had supported it to dislodge the ANC from both Tshwane and Joburg in 2016.
DA head of governance James Selfe said on Sunday the official opposition would push for the election of its own mayoral candidate, Funzela Ngobeni, who is currently MMC for finance under Mashaba.
Selfe said the EFF candidate, which is yet to be announced by the party, would likely be eliminated, as the EFF only had 30 of the 270 seats in the council while the ANC and the DA had 121 and 104 respectively.