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Prospective ANC mayoral candidate in Limpopo’s Capricorn district municipality, John Mpe, has been threatened with arrest just a few days before the ANC national executive committee sits this weekend to conclude the names of mayoral candidates for the August 3 elections.
City Press spoke to a municipal official who had been cited among those expected to write an affidavit against Mpe in order for his arrest to be executed. The official said they were “not at liberty to disclose anything now”.
“Until anything has materialised I am not at liberty to comment. I do not want to find myself in a tight corner,” the official said. “Keep your ear on the ground maybe there will be something.”
Mpe, also the ANC deputy chairperson in Limpopo’s Peter Mokaba region, said he had also heard the rumour, describing it as a plot to discredit him ahead of the weekend’s ANC national executive committee meeting. But that was for the public to judge, he said.
“You know [this is about] people who are fishing and they have been trying this thing for a long time,” he said.
“They are just going around saying this man will be arrested. For what, I do not know,” he said.
“At the end of the day if they have anything of substance let them proceed. If there is anything let them come out in public,” he said.
This week, the ANC provincial executive committee in Limpopo confirmed Mpe as the party’s mayor-elect in Capricorn, and for Thembi Nkadimeng to continue as mayor of Polokwane, insiders said.
The province confirmed an earlier decision by the Peter Mokaba ANC regional executive committee.
At the regional executive committee meeting this weekend there were those who had lobbied for regional chairperson Motalane Monakedi to become the new mayor of Polokwane. They lost the decision by 18 votes to eight.
The same number agreed that Mpe become the mayor of Capricorn district municipality.
ANC Limpopo spokesperson Khumbudzo Ntshaveni said the PEC met on Monday but she was not at liberty to discuss the names of those who were chosen as mayoral candidates. Ntshaveni said national will make the final decision this weekend.
Monakedi said he was unaware of threats to have Mpe arrested.
“As far as I am concerned there is nothing like that,” he said.
He said the allegations linking him to the plot because he had lost the decision on the Polokwane mayorship were unfounded.
“I can only be party to something that I am aware of,” said Monakedi.
