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A spoilt vote by an ANC councillor broke the month old impasse at Jozini, northern KwaZulu-Natal, on Friday.
This allowed the hung municipality to finally elect an executive, but local business leaders fear five years of political trench warfare lie ahead for the council.
This was the fifth attempt by the municipality to elect an executive since the August 3 local government elections and the IFP’s Lindiwe Gumbi was elected as speaker by a single vote majority, with the IFP-DA-EFF alliance defeating the ANC and its independent ally in a 20-19 split.
The IFP’s Delani Mabika was elected mayor by the same margin, while independent councillor Sphamandla Mathenjwa, who voted with the ANC, was elected deputy after the vote for this post was conducted through a draw from a hat.
The council – which the ANC had won in 2011 from the IFP – had been run by an administrator appointed by the provincial Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube because of the deadlock, with residents claiming service delivery had been affected by the lack of political leadership in council.
Friday’s vote followed four unsuccessful attempts to elect an executive, with the ANC’s councillors failing to turn up on three occasions.
On Friday Dube-Ncube imposed strict conditions on the meeting, barring councillors from leaving for caucuses once the proceedings had begun.
ANC provincial chairperson and Economic Development MEC Sihle Zikalala, who champions the area in Cabinet, oversaw the election and addressed the councillors ahead of the vote.
Ronald Radebe, the chairperson of the Jozini Chamber of Business and Industry, said while they welcomed the election, they were concerned that the break in the deadlock would be temporary and that there would be “warfare’’ at council level.
“We welcome the deadlock being broken, but we note that the way in which it happened – through spoilt votes and a draw from a hat. We are concerned that there will be this kind of a conflict and a deadlock in council on every decision that requires consensus because the issues have not been resolved,’’ said Radebe.
“Of course we are happy, but we can see that there are still going to be hassles and hope that they will not have to end up tossing a coin over every decision council has to take. We have programmes that have fallen behind that we as business were running with council and we need to catch up on these,’’ he said.
Radebe said the business community would meet the new municipal leadership this week to discuss issues including service delivery, cross border crime and joint development programmes.
‘’People have been patient here since the 1960s. They live on the side of a dam but they don’t have water,’’ he said.
Dube-Ncube said she was “relieved’’ that a leadership had finally been elected.
“The goal of electing a new mayor, deputy mayor and speaker of Jozini has been achieved. The political maturity we called for has finally prevailed and the people of Jozini now have a functional municipality,” said Dube-Ncube.
She said Cogta would monitor the municipality to ensure both stability and service delivery, while councillors needed to execute their mandate with “utmost seriousness”.
Vusi Mabuyakhulu, who runs a roadside tyre shop with a spectacular view of the Pongolapoort Dam – which supplies water to Nongoma and Ulundi but not to 70% of Jozini’s residents – said the town was in crisis.
“I did vote, even though there is not a lot being done. There’s no water here. There are no title deeds. The roads are bad. It’s very difficult to do business because you have to wait for so long for council,’’ he says.
Taxi driver Siyabonga Fakude (34), says that his home has been without water since voting day.
“The last time the tankers came it was on August 3. Since then there has been no water. The road here is terrible. They need to sort out their problems and start to help us. That is what we voted for,’’ said Fakude.
