The Tshwane metro council is expected to hold an election for a new mayor on Friday, with the lone-seat PAC member, Molwantwa Tshabadi, tipped to take over the reins of the capital city.

Tshabadi is set to go head-to-head with DA multiparty coalition candidate Cilliers Brink, who lost the most recent mayoral election to disgraced former mayor Murunwa Makwarela.

Makwarela, who was also a lone-seat member for Congress of the People (Cope) was removed from the Tshwane mayoral office after it emerged he had submitted a fake rehabilitation notice amid an insolvency scandal that disqualified him from occupying public office.

All indicators for now are that Tshwane will again be led by mayor from a minority part that only has one seat in council.

This comes as the ANC and EFF voting bloc has thrown its weight behind Tshabadi.

The ANC, EFF and seven lone-seat parties make up 105 seats in council (excluding the vacancy of the Cope seat following Makwarela’s resignation), while the DA has 69 seats and the rest of their alliance boasts 37 seats.

However, there is a level of distrust in the DA coalition camp after it and ActionSA recently subjected councilors to lie detector tests in an attempt to identify those who may have defied the party line by supporting Makwarela.

The DA caucus this week also got disqualified in the speaker election because its leadership had assigned a number to each candidate in the election to ensure that all their councilors toed the line.

The Independent Electoral Commission subsequently disqualified all DA votes as the move by its caucus leaders was found to be unlawful in terms of the rules around the secrecy of ballot papers. 

Tshabadi was likely to emerge with support from the ANC, EFF, African Transformation Movement (ATM), African Independent Congress, Patriotic Alliance and Republican Conference of Tshwane, which had propelled Makwarela to the mayor’s office.

This forms part of the plan of the ANC and EFF to reclaim Gauteng metros from DA control with the help of other minority parties.

This is part of a trend that started in Joburg with the election of Cope’s Colleen Makhubele as speaker and Al-Jama-ah’s Thapelo Amad as mayor.

The trend is set to take root in Tshwane after the ANC and its alliance won the first round of the battle on Monday, when the ATM’s Mncedi Ndzwanana defeated the DA multiparty coalition on Monday in the election of speaker.

ANC Gauteng provincial chair Panyaza Lesufi said the operation to wrest power back from the DA would not end with the metropolitan cities as they were eyeing further partnerships in other municipalities across the rest of the province.

An insider confirmed that despite the ANC and EFF wanting to gain control of DA metros, no consolidation had been reached between the two parties regarding who would take over which metro, resulting in them hoisting minority parties in their coalitions to occupy the speaker and mayoral seats.

Leaders from the ANC and the small parties lending them support prefer to occupy mayoral seats, as evidenced by the composition of the City of Johannesburg mayoral committee, where MMCs have huge influence on budgets and procurement spending. 

The election of the new mayor is set to take place at TshwaneHouse in the capital city on Friday.