Another one: Kabelo Gwamanda quit as Johannesburg mayor on Tuesday. (Photo: Luba Lesolle)
Tensions are rising between Johannesburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda and his predecessor and Al Jamah-ah party colleague, Thapelo Amad, on who should be a member of the mayoral council (MMC) under incoming mayor Dada Morero.
Amad is the provincial leader of Al Jamah-ah in Gauteng.
Gwamanda quit as mayor on Tuesday after the ANC pushed for him to be removed to make way for Morero. His resignation will only be effective from a date to be determined by council speaker Margaret Arnolds, who is herself expected to step down.
In his resignation letter, Gwamanda said that as the youngest mayor of Johannesburg, he had stabilised the metro financially and administratively, following a collapse of the multi-party coalition running it.
“I am pleased that we managed to place good governance on course and that we achieved the best audit outcomes witnessed by the city in years. I shall continue to serve the people of Johannesburg as a councillor and will forever cherish the experience afforded to me in my tenure as the executive mayor,” he said.
Sources in the minority parties involved in the municipality told the Mail & Guardian that Amad was not happy about Gwamanda being an MMC because he believed the position should be given to him as Al Jama-ah’s leader in the province.
One source said Amad believed he should be rewarded because he had made a sacrifice to allow Gwamanda to become mayor.
“The ANC always considers seniority the same way Dada as the chair has been made the mayor. We are hoping that on Al Jamah-ah they would have considered who is senior and elevate them,” they said.
Amad resigned as Johannesburg mayor in April 2023, on the eve of a motion of no confidence in him. This allowed Al Jamah-ah to replace him with Gwamanda.
A source in the ANC regional executive committee told the M&G that there was no opposing view when Morero was pronounced as the party’s mayoral candidate. The source also confirmed the tension between Gwamanda and Amad.
“Thapelo is the leader of Al Jamah-ah and he feels he should be made the MMC if there’s a vacancy. We don’t want to speak on who should be put in the MMC position, Al Jamah-ah will come with a name to us,” they said.
The source said it was still unclear when Arnolds would resign and if she would be replaced by an ActionSA speaker.
“For now we just wanted to install the mayor then we will have further engagements about the speaker,” they said.
The M&G tried to get comment from Gwamanda and Amad, to no avail.
Al Jamah-ah party leader Ganief Hendricks said the party had put in place an exit plan for Gwamanda to be redeployed to the mayoral committee of the city.
“A meeting took place at midnight with the ANC and the mayor was present. The president of Al Jamah-ah facilitated an exit strategy in line with what the president wanted,” he said.
ANC regional secretary Sasabona Manganye told the M&G that Gwamanda would be included in the mayoral committee. He said the MMC position made vacant by Morero ascending to the mayorship would be given to the minority parties, but added that he did not want to get into the parties’ internal discussion on this.
“The understanding which the ANC has from the minorities is that if the discussion will lead to the situation where the mayor is and the speaker are out, they are made priority for the mayoral committee,” he said.
“We have made the commitment to the Al Jamah-ah party that these are the engagements internally and we can assure that the mayor will be accommodated in the mayoral committee.”
Manganye denied that the ANC had been forced by ActionSA to remove Gwamanda as mayor. ActionSA has previously said the two parties had agreed that it would take the speaker position and Gwamanda should vacate his position to allow for any mayoral candidate from the ANC.
“Kabelo Gwamanda never resigned because of what ActionSA said, in fact we were going to agree on working with ActionSA on the condition that Gwamanda resign if coalition agreements were not allowing us to have our own mayor. We have got the numbers to elect a mayor with or without ActionSA,” Manganye said.