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Ekurhuleni Mayor Mzwandile Masina says the coalition running the industrial heartland in the east of Gauteng has outlived others formed in 2016 because it is based on principles, not “convenience or deals”.
Masina last week became one of the last major metro mayors standing of those elected in 2016 to preside over fragile coalition governments.
Hung councils in Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Johannesburg have all seen mayoral changes since the watershed local government elections.
The last exit was that of Herman Mashaba in Johannesburg last week.
In Ekurhuleni, the ANC teamed up with the Patriotic Alliance, the Pan Africanist Congress, the African Independent Congress (AIC) and the Independent Ratepayers Association of SA.
“We thought speaking to bigger parties might dilute the message and the political context which we have presented in the form of our manifesto to the people, so it was a very straight forward and principled coalition agreement. We wanted a coalition government that would be concerned with service delivery and that would be pro-poor, that was the foundation,” Masina said in an interview.
“We then said that as part and parcel of our contribution to the relationship, there is something called section 79 committees, which is the equivalent of a portfolio committee chairperson in Parliament, so you do oversight. So we offered them portfolios of community services, land, police and city planning. That was the extent of our agreement regarding leadership. We kept the executive purely ANC so that there would be no ideological confusions, but also so that you don’t have another party seeking to enforce its view.
“If you listen to Mashaba, he said they implemented another party’s policy. We have not had to do that, we have stuck to our own.”
Masina insisted that the ANC had “avoided a relationship of convenience and deals”, with the four smaller parties.
During the negotiations which followed the elections, the AIC demanded that the ANC guarantee the return of Matatiele to KwaZulu-Natal from the Eastern Cape.
The demarcations of that town had been changed in 2005, a move which saw a series of protests.
The mayor last week said that while there was agreement in principle that the ANC would look into the matter, it was not a deal-breaker.
“Matatiele is not a deal, it is a principle. The AIC raised an issue and we took it where it belongs and that it is with the ANC’s national executive committee, which is dealing with it.
“We can go to the next elections without it being resolved and other elections again. You don’t wake up and change boundaries. There are a lot of considerations because it goes with a lot of complex issues because it involves two provinces. But what we know between ourselves and the AIC is that there are legitimate processes in place. As to when it will happen, I don’t think it should be an issue of preoccupation.”
Amid ongoing allegations of corruption in the city, Masina says he has repeatedly been vindicated by the Auditor-General and other institutions of government, which he says have indicated that there is something fundamentally right being done in Ekurhuleni.
“When people don’t get their way they will say the mayor is corrupt, that he has a girlfriend, that he has stolen this or that, or that you are an evil person.
“But where it matters is with the Auditor-General, who comes every year and looks at everything we do here. That is how I measure myself and how I console my family.”
Masina has survived a series of battles to unseat him as chairperson of the Ekurhuleni region.
He is also constantly in hot water for his views on Twitter, but says being critical of the ANC is necessary for its survival.
“I am the only person who has served two terms as a chairman in this region since 1994, that should tell you something. Leading to when we were going to Nasrec and when we were coming back, people were saying “he is gone”. They came back and I clobbered them because people know the truth. I represent the voiceless and that is why I will always be strong here in the province and in the country.
“People need someone who is independent. I am not captured by anybody, that has been my character. I love my ANC, I love the leadership that is elected, all of them, but they are not God, so they must answer.
“That is what leadership is about and that is why I can tolerate things and answer anything thrown at me. Leadership must answer. So when we say that you said the Reserve Bank must be nationalised, it is not me, it is a resolution of conference, it is the ANC. Free education, [land expropriation without compensation], among other issues resolved on, somebody must ask those things.”
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