Pretoria - Unless a political turnaround happens in the next few days, MMC for Economic Development and Spatial Planning Randall Williams is in pole position to be the next executive mayor of the City of Tshwane.
Council is set to continue the January 30 sitting next Wednesday and hold an ordinary meeting the following day (Thursday) and the election of the new first citizen is expected to be on the agenda.
The DA yesterday announced Williams as its candidate for the position. In announcing his candidacy, the DA said Williams was a long-serving councillor, who in addition to being MMC, was chairperson of the Municipal Appeals Tribunal between 2016 and 2019.
“The DA believes Williams is an excellent mayoral candidate who stands ready to continue the DA-led coalition programme of progress and delivery for all. We congratulate Williams on his election as a mayoral candidate, and trust that he will serve the people of Tshwane well as executive mayor and we commit our support to him unconditionally in the pursuit of creating one South Africa for all,” the party said.
If elected by council, Williams will succeed Stevens Mokgalapa and become the third mayor of the current local government term since the DA-led coalition government came to power in 2016.
Following the local government elections of that year, the DA was able to form a government with minority parties, supported by the EFF.
Solly Msimanga was the first mayor, but resigned early last year to become the DA’s candidate for Gauteng premier in the general election last year.
When that mission failed, Msimanga became the opposition leader in the province, where his DA came second to the ANC again.
The DA then shipped to Tshwane its MP, city-born Mokgalapa, who was elected mayor unopposed.
However, following a sex scandal involving then roads and transport MMC Sheila Senkubuge, he resigned and is in his final days as the first citizen of the metro.
Announcing his resignation a few weeks ago, Mokgalapa said he would remain a PR councillor for the DA in council. Both the ANC and EFF have tabled countless motions of no confidence against him and speaker Katlego Mathebe, but these had yet to be decided upon because of a dispute regarding who should preside over the matter.
Mokgalapa was this morning scheduled to address the media, where he was expected give an assessment of service delivery highlights during his term in office and other governance-related matters.
It is not yet known if the official opposition ANC and kingmaker EFF will field candidates for the mayoral position.
The EFF, which has since withdrawn its support for the DA and as a result stopped voting with the ruling party in council, previously indicated it wanted to govern the metro.
The ANC and EFF were expected to team up to outvote the DA-led government, but on Sunday Premier David Makhura, also ANC chairperson in Gauteng, said his party would rather remain on the opposition benches than help another party to take over the City of Tshwane.
Makhura, delivering the political input in his capacity at the ANC’s cadre assembly, said the party would remain the official opposition until the 2021 local government election - it was not allowed to be the leader of a coalition government.
“The ANC has been playing a very important role as the opposition in Tshwane. We have exposed the drastic and dramatic failures of the DA-led administration. We have exposed the collapse of governance and administration. We are not desperate as the ANC. We are not going to hand over power or use our votes to bring somebody else to power in Tshwane,” he said.
The party was lobbying other parties to collaborate with the ANC instead. “If they don’t want to do that, we don’t mind being in the opposition benches to continue the fight there. We are not going to be at the mercy of people who will put us in power and think they can use us or who will be in power and think they can use us to achieve their own goal,” Makhura said.