The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) says it will obey eThekwini voters by voting against the African National Congress (ANC) at the inaugural council meeting of the eThekwini metro at the Durban ICC today.
The meeting resumes today after it was postponed on Monday when ANC supporters stormed in a tent at the Moses Mabhida Stadium where it was being held.
The incident was followed by a statement from the municipality claiming that a power outage had led to the postponement.
“That’s what we’re going to do. If there are two candidates ANC and the DA, we’re going to vote for this one of DA because anything against the ANC, that’s what we’re going to do. So, we’re not apologetic about that. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re voting to make … because voters and the people of eThekwini, they’ve said they don’t want to be led by the ANC, (we’ll make sure) that, that doesn’t happen, but we are following the wishes of the voters. The voters were very clear,” says Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Secretary-General Marshall Dlamini.
Dlamini adds that they will make sure that there are no disruptions to service delivery in the municipality.
“We are going to make sure that there are stable municipalities. We’re not coming here to disrupt municipalities. We’re responsible leaders of society. We have been elected to come and make sure that there is stability in the municipalities. That is going to be the mandate and the responsibility of our councillors here, to make sure that discussions must happen, robustly so, but make sure that at the end of the day the people of eThekwini are the ones that are receiving services. It’s not about us it’s about the voters.”
eThekwini Municipality council meeting to resume:
The Democratic Alliance’s caucus leader in the eThekwini Metro Council Nicole Graham has echoed the sentiment of the EFF that the city’s voters did not want to see the African National Congress (ANC) in power.
The ANC did not receive an outright majority in the local government elections and control only 96 of the 200 seats in the council.
Graham says other parties would be putting forward candidates today in order to take control of the council.
“You know, it’s quite clear to us as the Democratic Alliance, we represent one in four voters in the city (and) that the people don’t want the ANC to return to government in the city, and that people want things to change. And, I think that is a broad consensus among the opposition parties that now hold a majority in this council. There are a lot of things that divide us. There are a lot of ideological, political differences, but I think the first uniting choice today must be to ensure that the ANC cannot resume governance in the city.”
Graham says should the ANC be defeated in the election of mayor and deputy mayor, a difficult task lies ahead in governing the city.
“We have to get back to basics, that is the first thing. The core job in terms of the constitution of local governments is to deliver services. And that’s what we need to do here. We need to make sure that the city works. The second thing is then to try and create some stimulation in the economy. This is a city that is not working. This is a city where people are unemployed and people are really suffering. So, we need to get the basics right. It’s going to be a complicated road because we don’t have an outright majority and this won’t be a DA government as it were, in as much it would be a broad group of people trying to work together.”
