Lungani Zungu
Last year Lindelwa Penisi was fired as the ANC Chief Whip in Raymond Mhlaba Municipality for calling protesting community members “uncircumcised boys”.
One year on, she has made a mysterious comeback, this time as a councillor candidate in the 1 November local government elections.
The ANC in Raymond Mhlaba sub-region in the Eastern Cape axed Penisi following the emergence of a video in which she can be heard telling protesting residents: “F**k you, you uncircumcised boys!”
The party called her behaviour “un-ANC” and summoned her to a disciplinary hearing.
“Such abhorrent behaviour makes a complete mockery of the office she holds and is contemptuous to the people of Raymond Mhlaba Municipality and the constituency she represents,” the party said at the time.
Strangely, the party has given her the nod to stand as ward councillor candidate for Ward 20 in Raymond Mhlaba, despite fierce public opposition.
Resident and ANC member Mcebisi Mvaba said: “We don’t know how she is the candidate because we don’t want her. She is not fit to be our councillor”.
Mvaba said he wrote to the provincial leadership, challenging Penisi’s nomination as councillor.
“The ANC is spitting in our faces by putting Penisi as our candidate. She has proven over and over again that she doesn’t have the interests of people at heart,” said another resident Muzikayise Dlamini.
Many residents are against the nomination of Penisi, he said.
“Many people don’t want her to be the councillor at all. I will personally not vote for her, meaning that I will not vote for the ANC,” said Dlamini.
Penisi flatly refused to comment.
