Unlikely mayor of the Winelands

Nobody was more surprised than ANC stalwart and mayor of the Cape Winelands District Municipality, Clarence Johnson, when he was ordered by his party to step down and hand the mayoral chain to maverick National People’s Party (NPP) leader Badih Chaaban.

The NPP has been in a coalition in eight councils with the ANC for 18 months, and on July 2 Chaaban became the unlikely mayor of the Winelands, which covers 25 towns and is home to more than 4 000 wine estates. Despite public protests outside the Worcester council building at his demotion, Johnson took up the post as his deputy.

A ruffled Johnson has now lodged a complaint with the ANC against Chaaban after he refused to agree to a programme of events to mark Nelson Mandela’s 91st birthday on July 18.

‘I was part of the debate in the National Assembly when we all pledged support for the celebration of Mandela’s birthday to pursue selflessness, social justice and democracy,” Johnson told the Mail & Guardian. ‘But Chaaban would not sign off on the programme we had lined up, which we were going to stage with the SABC in our local municipalities. We planned to plant a tree in honour of Madiba and provide blankets to the frail and poor and hold other events. But Chaaban said no, he felt it was a commercialisation of Madiba, and only the rich were going to benefit.”

While the rest of the world celebrated the birthday of South Africa’s most famous son, Johnson said he had to call off the planned events. The matter is up for discussion at the next council meeting, but Johnson said he had yet to determine whether the council was in recess as he had not been able to reach Chaaban for a week.

Chaaban told the M&G he refused to agree to the Mandela birthday celebration proposal as he had been expected to hand over R100 000 to the SABC for speakers and a music system.

Instead, he said he visited farmworkers on Mandela’s birthday and the municipal manager had done 67 minutes of community work in Worcester and Stellenbosch.

‘Everybody has just jumped on the bandwagon as far as Mandela’s birthday goes,” said Chaaban.

‘There has been a commercialisation of Madiba’s birthday, and it is worse than Christmas. I have to watch expenditure in the muncipality, and that is exactly what I did.”

Chaaban, who left the Africa Muslim Party in 2007 to form the NPP, was not an obvious choice for the role of mayor in the gracious Winelands. He has, though, dismissed allegations of his relationship with underworld figures, like Yuri ‘The Russian” Ulianitski, who was killed in an alleged gangland slaying. They were nothing more than acquaintances he met at casinos, he said.

The firebrand politician was at the centre of a controversy in 2007, when as a city councillor he was accused of plotting to unseat then Cape Town mayor Helen Zille by offering bribes to councillors before the floor-crossing period.

ANC sources claimed the decision to hand the role of mayor of the Winelands to Chaaban is to be reviewed, along with other contentious decisions made by the provincial executive committee (PEC) in the Western Cape, which was found to have failed in its duty and recently disbanded.

However Jessie Duarte, spokeperson for the ANC, said all decisions made by the disbanded Western Cape PEC would stand and the ANC would not interfere in provincial matters at a national level. ‘It would make no logical sense to rescind the decisions taken by the PEC,” she said. ‘We will wait for the new task team to be announced, and they can assess matters in the region.”

Chaaban said at present his was a figurehead role and he had rented a house in Stellenbosch while he acquaints himself with what is expected of him in his new job.

‘The matter was discussed with the ANC months ago and it was decided that after the elections, I would be made mayor. It was not like I threatened to pull out of the coalition, as my party would have been left out in the cold,” said Chaaban. ‘Clarence Johnson had been mayor of the Winelands for eight years, and I am sure he would not have stood down unless he was told to, but I am tapping into his experience and we are getting on well.”