Cape Town - On Thursday a Western Cape High Court is expected to issue an order which will settle the dispute over who the mayor of Bitou municipality is - for now.
After three failed attempts at electing a new mayor and a bizarre scenario where two councillors from the DA and ANC were both considered mayors, the court is expected to issue an order that will settle the dispute until the case is heard in its entirety.
On Wednesday arguments were to be heard in court after the municipality and nine other applicants filed an urgent application which seeks to topple a newly elected executive for the municipality, led by the DA’s Bill Nel and the Active United Front’s (AUF) Peter Lobese, whom the DA helped remove as mayor just two months ago.
Back in April the DA joined forces with the ANC to vote Lobese out through a vote of no confidence but then weeks later the party had voted him back in as speaker.
This follows a contentious council meeting that sat two weeks ago where the DA caucus leader, Nel was elected mayor and Nomphumelelo Ndayi was named deputy mayor.
The application, which is to be heard in two parts, seeks in the immediate term to have Nel, Lobese and Ndayi interdicted from holding the positions the municipality said they held ‘illegally’ and interdicting the implementation of any decisions taken at meetings held between May 19 and 21 - these includes the suspension of municipal manager, Lonwabo Ngoqo.
The second part of the application will deal with declaring a series of meetings held over three days as invalid, together with any decisions taken there.
In his affidavit to the court, the ANC’s Euan Wilderman (who was the speaker) said a DA faction had approached him to convene an urgent council meeting within 48 hours to elect a new mayor and to vote on two motions of no confidence in him at Gcabayi.
Wilderman said it was only after having issued a notice for the meeting that he realised he had approved the meeting in error as it did not meet the required six working days notice and postponed it to a later date.
Nel in his responding papers argued that Wilderman had no power to reschedule the meeting and that the meeting went ahead as scheduled on May 19, despite the municipal manager, speaker or support staff present to record the meeting.
After lengthy discussions between council representing both parties today, a draft agreement was reached which is expected to see Nel and the two others interdicted from calling themselves the executive council for the municipality with an agreement in hand to hold a council meeting to elect a new mayor next week. The judge is expected to sign this agreement into an order tomorrow.
The DA’s East region chairperson Tertuis Simmers said they have taken note of the court matter.
“Noting that this part of the case forms part of a bigger case matter, we will await the judgement(s) which will focus on the merits of the real essence of the broader matter,” he said.