The speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete has confirmed that Tshwane mayoral candidate Thoko Didiza will be vacating her current position as house chairperson in the National Assembly regardless of the results for the metropolitan in the local government elections.

 “We are already interacting with the relevant structures about ensuring that utilising the appropriate lists and mechanisms for us to source replacements of people that would come into the ANC caucus‚” said Mbete in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

This comes as Didiza said she will only leave her current job if the ANC wins the Tshwane metro in the August 3 elections.

“All of that would be effected after the local government elections… It is only the results of the elections that will crisply put out to us that indeed the ANC did get the majority‚” said Mbete.

Didiza was proposed as mayoral candidate for Tshwane after three other names were rejected by the party’s provincial executive committee. The announcement was not welcomed by all‚ with some ANC supporters taking to the streets in protest.

If successful‚ Didiza will no longer share the responsibility of keeping order in the increasingly boisterous National Assembly.

Last week Electoral Commission spokesperson Kate Bapela cleared up one of the rules for being a candidate by explaining that a member of the National Assembly would only have to resign if the party they are standing for is successful and they obtain a council seat.