The Council sitting to elect a new mayor in the City of Ekurhuleni must be reconvened within seven days after being postponed on Wednesday.
Parties were scheduled to elect a mayor following the ousting of the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Tania Campbell last week.
The former Ekurhuleni mayor and African National Congress (ANC) Regional Chairperson Mzwandile Masina has withdrawn from contesting for the mayoral chain and any other position in the metro.
Earlier, ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) councillors met to deliberate on which candidate should be endorsed.
The EFF is fielding its provincial chairperson Nkululeko Dunga.
Masina says the metro needs new leadership.
He says, “Good dancers know when to stop dancing, so this time around we want the ANC to be at the helm of government and we have to give to the younger leadership of the organisation to come in and take us forward.”
He adds: “This election is very critical, that’s why even ourselves as the ANC must allow new ideas to come through so we can rescue the city. I remain the public representative of the ANC as the councillor. I will not be accepting any position in council except being the leader of the ANC.”
VIDEO: SABC reporter Samkele Maseko on events at the City of Ekurhuleni council meeting:
Coalition
Last week, Campbell said the coalition made a lot of progress in improving service delivery in the Gauteng Metro.
During a media briefing, Campbell pledged to continue her work on behalf of the residents as opposition leader in the council.
She says, “While we’re clearly disappointed that the coalition of corruption succeeded in bringing an end to the good work, and the driven commitment of the multi-party coalition, we accept that we have an equally important role to play, from the opposition benches. The multi-party coalition has spent 10 months working to undo the damage done by the ANC, over the past two decades.”
Additional reporting by Zoleka Qodashe.
