It was a day of high drama in Nelson Mandela Bay when lone DA councillor proved to be the undoing of Athol Trollip as mayor of the City.
Council Speaker, Jonathan Lawack, was also replaced in one fell swoop by the ANC’s Bulelwa Mafaya.
This political ‘coup’, months in the making, was made possible by DA councillor, Victor Manyati, who dropped a bombshell on Monday by abstaining during the vote on a motion by the UDM to oust Lawack.
He has since been sacked from the party.
Manyati’s abstention gave the ANC and its allies, backed by the EFF, the slim one vote needed to effectively oust the DA-led coalition Council.
The opposition parties passed a motion to rescind a decision to terminate the Deputy Mayor’s position which went to African Independent Councillor, Tshonono Buyeye.
Speaking to the media after the vote to oust Lawack, the former DA councillor said that he had taken a “sober decision not to vote with the DA today”. He said he had personal reasons.
However, DA provincial leader, Nqaba Bhanga, declared the Council meeting as an “illegal meeting” after the Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Fikile Xasa, dispatched a senior official to preside over the meeting late this afternoon.
Bhanga told Algoa FM News that the Municipal Manager, Johan Mettler, had earlier adjourned the meeting after first declaring and then rescinding a decision to declare a vacancy as a result of Manyati’s sacking by the DA.
Mettler left the chamber as did DA councillors with opposition parties refusing to budge and calling on the MEC to intervene.
Bhanga said what transpired was “political interference” by the provincial government when MEC Xasa sent a letter to confer authority on a senior official, Jenny Roestorf, to preside over the Council meeting.
