Durban – The ruling party in eThekwini narrowly survived a scare of being thrown out of power in eThekwini metro, the party’s crown jewel and provincial economic hub.
The sitting to elect public office bearers was adjourned on Monday following the eruption of chaos. On Wednesday in a salacious move, Abantu Batho Congress (ABC) leader and former ANC uMvoti local municipality mayor Philani Mavundla together with other smaller parties made a change of mind voting with the ANC which saw Mxolisi Kaunda narrowly emerging beating DA’s Nicole Graham.
Kaunda garnered 113 votes while Graham received 104. Both the EFF and the IFP had backed Graham for the mayoral chain.
Up to late on Wednesday, a coalition of opposition parties were set to snatch the metro from the ruling party, but it proved not to be.
However, Sunday World understands that the opposition parties intend approaching court to have the sitting nullified on procedural grounds.
“As the IFP, we will seek legal advice on how the meeting was conducted especially with the inclusion of councillor P.G Mavundla in the executive committee when that item had been concluded on Monday,” Mdu Nkosi said IFP’s caucus leader in the metro.
In Umvoti, the ABC went to bed with other opposition parties and voted with the IFP removing the ANC from power.
It’s not clear what would have made Mavundla to switch sides after he had been rallying behind a government formed by opposition parties.
During the sitting, the ANC made a surprising exclusion of Ntokozo Sibiya, chairperson of the community services committee in the last administration to make space for the Mavundla.
He was subsequently elected as deputy mayor. There are already claims of votes buying from opposition parties which the ANC has said those who alleges that they had offered money to other parties to vote with them must provide evidence.
All eyes were on eThekwini to save the ruling party from a complete electoral embarrassment after it lost all metros in Gauteng province.
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