The Cape Town city council has given mayor Helen Zille a mandate to declare an intergovernmental dispute if necessary in her battle with Western Cape local government minister Richard Dyantyi.
The mandate, in the form of a 103-75 vote in the council on Friday, takes the council a step closer to a court challenge to Dyantyi’s plan to strip Zille of her executive powers.
The vote came soon after a one-on-one meeting between Zille and Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi, who is trying to mediate a negotiated solution.
The 10-minute meeting, at Zille’s office, was her second with Mufamadi on the issue.
The two met last week, together with Dyantyi, who has given notice of his intention to replace Cape Town’s executive mayor system with an executive committee, on which the African National Congress, currently in opposition, would have a substantial presence.
Speaking after Friday’s meeting, Zille said she was ”warmly encouraged” by Mufamadi’s attitude, and that it had given her ”renewed optimism”.
”It was a very frank, very positive, very forthright meeting and I’m encouraged that we could find a way forward,” she said.
She said she now had to speak to her partners in the city’s multi-party government and to her own Democratic Alliance caucus.
Mufamadi said he met Dyantyi for a second time on Thursday, ahead of his meeting with Zille.
”I’m encouraged by the positive attitude of both the mayor and the MEC [provincial minister],” he said.
”It is clear that a solution cannot elude us because all of us are determined to find it.”
He would not be drawn on what that solution could be.
Friday’s vote was opposed by the ANC, which said a report Zille tabled on the issue did not set out any grounds for declaring an intergovernmental dispute, and that she should first conclude negotiations with Mufamadi before asking the council to vote.
Under the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act, declaration of an intergovernmental dispute must be followed by formal meetings to seek an out-of-court resolution.
Only if these fail can the city go to court.
On Thursday, Zille led about 1 000 supporters on a ”save democracy” march through central Cape Town to deliver a memo to Dyantyi demanding he withdraw his notice. – Sapa