Bitou Mayor, Peter Lobese has announced that he, along with his party, the Active United Front, will be ending its coalition with the ANC in Plettenberg Bay.
Lobese says the AUF and ANC are not seeing eye to eye over several issues, including the matter of clean governance.
The AUF and ANC in Bitou have been in a coalition since the local government elections in August last year.
The results showed that while the DA had received the majority of votes, it did not garner enough to secure the party outright majority.
The DA received 48.58% of the votes which gave the party six seats in council. The ANC received 40.99% of the support, also giving it six seats, while the AUF managed 5.36% of the votes for the final seat.
Following the coalition agreement, Lobese was inaugurated as the town’s mayor.
Lobese said in a statement that he joins the rest of South Africans at home and abroad who are troubled and pained by President Jacob Zuma.
“I join the rest of South Africans home and abroad who are troubled and pained by this ‘rogue’ President to make the point that our country cannot afford this him and nothing must be done to assist him to continue being in office even for one day, this include calling all parties like the AUF who are in coalition with the ANC in various municipalities to act in solidarity with the rest of South Africans and pull out of these coalitions." Lobese said
He added that it had become "almost impossible to operate with single-mindedness" with the ANC in Bitou and claimed the party had thwarted efforts to establish clean governance in more than one instance.
