By Karabo Rammutla
Councillors in the Tshwane Metro didn’t get much sleep as voting for the speaker of council was concluded in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The ANC-led coalition won with its candidate Mncedi Ndzwanana, the African Transformation Movement member, who has been elected speaker of the council.
The DA-led coalition had presented ActionSA’s Kholofelo Morodi as its candidate.
It was clear from the beginning that the ANC-led coalition would rely on discontent and mistrust in the DA coalition to win.
ANC’s excitement started with the arrival of expelled ActionSA councillor, Nkele Molapo, who was allowed to participate in the council meeting and vote.
The meeting was later adjourned and resumed in the afternoon only to be stopped when a scuffle broke out between IEC officials and the ANC-led coalition.
The total votes were 211 and Morodi got 37 while Ndzwanana got 105.
In the end, the DA’s Cilliers Brink said the loser had been declared a winner. He said the 69 ballots that were declared spoiled belonged to the DA.
He said they had voted using numbers in order for them to identify rogue councillors who might vote with the opposition.
“Those votes are valid and very clear. We have put the numbers instead of the x and it is clear that we voted for the ActionSA candidate. We are consulting our lawyers first thing in the morning and we will update once we get legal advice,” he said.
Pictured above: The DA-ActionSA coalition has rejected the vote of Mncedi Ndzwanana’s election as Speaker
Image source: ATM Tshwane
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