City of Johannesburg mayor Mpho Phalatse has filed an urgent interdict to stop a meeting to unseat her from happening.

Newly elected council speaker Colleen Makhubele convened a special meeting for Friday at 10am.

Items on the agenda include Phalatse's removal as mayor. It's expected that Phalatse will be replaced by ANC regional chairperson Dada Morero.

Phalatse wants the Johannesburg High Court to declare Makhubele's notice to convene a meeting as unlawful, invalid and null and void.

She also wants the court to declare the city programming committee as unlawful, saying the meeting did not quorate hence the decision to convene the meeting was invalid.

Phalatse argues that motions of no confidence, according to the council rules of order, must be submitted 14 days prior to the meeting sitting. She said this did not happen.

“Motions of no confidence lodged against me were sent to the office of the secretary around 17 August and 13 September.

“Notice of those motions was not given to me. I became aware of their existence because of much media speculation.

“Notice of those motions was not given to the council. They were not selected by the programming committee for consideration at the ordinary council meeting scheduled for 28 September. The programming committee of August faced a concern that the motion was inadmissible in terms of 92(1) as being before the court of law.”

Phalatse said Makhubele's announcement of a special sitting for Friday gave them less than 20 hours to prepare.

She argues that while she respects Makhubele's authority to call a meeting, there were no supporting documents for the city's 270 councillors to prepare for it.

“I submit that three days would be reasonable. Anything less would be justified by good reason for the shortened notice. I see no reason for notice at such short notice,” she said.

On Wednesday, Makhubele, who was contesting against DA’s Alex Christians, received 141 votes while Christians got 129. The council has 270 seats. All councillors were present.

The multi-party coalition led by the DA consists of ActionSA, COPE, FF+, IFP, PA, ACDP, UIM and ATM.

The DA-led multiparty coalition government has a total of 140 of 270 seats in council. Eleven members of the coalition government voted for Makhubele.

By default, if Phalatse is removed, her mayoral committee is immediately dissolved.

It's understood that the IFP had fielded its own candidate within the coalition caucus which the party rejected.

During the last minutes of Wednesday's council, the DA suddenly proposed to support the IFP's candidate for speaker but it was just before the vote was held.

nkosin@sowetan.co.za