With only five months before citizens go to the polls in the local government elections, the City of Cape Town moved to elect a new Speaker.
And now, Felicity Purchase occupies the hot seat in the council.
Three weeks into the new role, opposition parties have expressed mixed feelings about her appointment but have extended their hand to work with her.
She has been in council for almost 27 years, has chaired sub-council meetings, and until recently, led the Transport Portfolio as Mayco member.
The nomination for the Speaker position took Purchase by surprise, she says, even though she was approached before to throw her name into the ring.
"The Mayor (Dan Plato), other Mayco members and councillors put pressure on me to put my name down, and so I did. I was casual about it, as I was enjoying my role as Mayco member for Transport," Purchase said.
Having chaired two meetings since her ascension to the seat in May, she is confident that she is up to the task.
"We are at a difficult time where everyone is politicising everything. So I expected a lot of grandstanding. But I am satisfied with how I conducted the meetings. As councillors, we should be mindful that we should all be working for what is in the best interest of the citizens of Cape Town," she said.
Purchase is the first woman to be elected to the Speaker position since the establishment of the metro in 2000, a move that has been hailed by most opposition political parties.
Her new role, she said, would be characterised by less talk, more work, and efficient meetings.
"I learnt from my father in business that time is money and you don’t waste time when somebody is paying for that. We are working with ratepayers' money, and therefore, should be efficient and as productive as we can. Sitting in meetings and grandstanding to get attention is not my idea of a productive meeting," warned Purchase.
She added that council meetings were largely about ratifying decisions and recommendations taken at portfolio and Sub-council meetings.
"That's where the grandstanding should take place and not at the council meeting," she said.
But her priority is to clear the backlog of complaints against councillors.
"We will investigate every complaint and resolve it. Some of these relate to the way people were not satisfied with how councillors conducted themselves. We want to spend time in the new term on providing training to councillors," Purchase said.
She also wants sub-councils to be used effectively, "better than currently".
"The business of council is done behind the scenes – we need functional ward, portfolio and sub-council meetings," she emphasised.
But, it is her performance in the previous role as Mayco member for Transport that has drawn interest and criticism among the opposition parties.
Transport in the city has remained in a crisis for more than two years and has had a major impact on the citizens who rely on public transport.
The rail service has collapsed and the MyCiTi service to Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain has not operated for two years.
Added to this, has been the rising taxi conflicts.
"Her performance was abysmal. That department received a huge chunk of the budget, but failed to do much," charged ANC leader in the City Council, Xolani Sotashe.
He said his party was willing to work with Purchase and expected her to be objective and non-partisan.
Former Transport Mayco Member Brett Herron was blunt in his assessment.
"Purchase did not fully grasp the complexities of transport and this is why so many of its functions are not operating or limping along. I am so disappointed that she allowed MyCiTi N2 Express service to collapse and was unable to find agreement with the operators to get it back up and running. That is a fatal flaw in her leadership of the Transport portfolio," Herron said.
He also noted that the shifting of Purchase coincided with the removal of Transport MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela.
"Transport is a crucial public service, the lifeblood of a city and is treated by the Democratic Alliance as a Cinderella function," Herron said.
But Purchase is satisfied with her performance in that role.
"We've done exciting stuff. We have put a good team together and a couple of changes have been made. The roll-out of the MyCiTi Phase 2A will be phenomenal in terms of its impact to the communities in the South-East. We are capacitating depots. The results of the work will only materialise with time," Purchase says.
In 2008, when then-Mayor Helen Zille moved to be premier and Dan Plato became mayor, Purchase became a Mayco Member for Economic Development & Tourism.
Two years later, the City, along with others in South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup.
"That was an exciting time for us -pushing the tourism envelope and trying to create jobs," she adds.
African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP)'s Grant Haskin expects Purchase to act in ways "that we can trust her – non-partisanship instead of batting for the DA".
Haskin said each of the 13 political parties in the City needed to be afforded time to make a contribution.
Purchase has made her loyalties known in the past and has been accused of being "divisive" in the DA caucus.
She and another councillor moved a motion of no confidence in the metro chair, Grant Twigg.
Plato was then elected chairperson of the metro.
"I have a lot of respect for the current mayor and would like to see him come back," Purchase added.
But the focus after the next elections, Purchase added, should be on spending money on infrastructure, in addition to the core mandate of service delivery.
"Our budgets are always so far extended. We have to be proactive in planning for the influx of people as the city keeps attracting people," she added.