This after the metro elected then deputy mayor Lebohang Masoetsa as the acting mayor to carry the baton forward after controversial mayor Olly Mlamleli was ousted by opposition parties by means of a secret ballot.

Speaker Mxolisi Siyonzana, who used his discretion to allow for a secret a vote against Mlamleli, tells OFM News that he doesn’t think residents of the metro ‘would have a problem’ by the fact that the metro still doesn’t have an official mayor a month after Mlamleli was ousted.

He used the troubled Nelson Mandela Bay Metro Municipality in the Eastern Cape, which has the African Independent Congress' (AIC) Thsonono Buyeye as interim mayor, as a point of reference for the delay in the election of the mayor. Siyonzana refused to comment on whether the council was in any process to identify a date for the council to sit and elect the new mayor.

Referencing the Eastern Cape municipality, Siyonzana says the mayor can be elected this week, next week, or after three months. 

Since Mlamleli’s ousting by opposition parties in the council, questions have been mounting on whether she can make a surprise comeback after three months through a motion. This after the ANC in the Free State threatened to crack the whip against councillors who voted with the Freedom Front Plus (FF+), Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Democratic Alliance (DA) to oust Mlamleli.

The FF+ proposed the motion against Mlamleli, who previously survived at least two such motions after the DA's motion of no confidence failed in early February. At least 31 councillors voted for the removal of Mlamleli while 28 opposed it, and eight spoiled their votes.

Following this, three ANC councillors filed court papers with the Bloemfontein High Court to interdict Siyonzana and the metro from announcing Mlamleli’s vote of no confidence results but their case was dismissed with costs.

OFM News