The DA in Ekurhuleni has vowed that only the court will remove the ousted speaker of Ekurhuleni, Raymond Dlamini, and Mayor Tania Campbell.

The party will be going to court to overturn the council’s decision to remove Dlamini and block the tabled motion without notice.

This motion was about a request for the suspension of the rules in terms of the council’s standing orders. It will enable the council to deliberate on any motion brought to its attention without being limited to a clause.

If some councillors have their way, they will see Campbell being voted out in the next extraordinary council meeting, expected to sit within seven days.

On Thursday night, 126 councillors from the EFF, ANC, Super Seven and the Independent Ratepayers Association of South Africa voted Dlamini out in absentia and elected the EFF’s councillor, Nthabiseng Tshivhenga, as the interim speaker.

DA public relations councillor Zelda Khathutshelo Rasilingwane says her party will go to court to overturn the ‘undemocratic, lawless, and opportunistic attempt by the EFF, ANC and other minority parties in council to illegally stitch together an illegitimate crooked coalition government and force it onto the residents of Ekurhuleni’.

“Dlamini remains the speaker of the council and Campbell remains in office as the mayor until after the court rules on the matter,” she adds.

Campbell says the decorum of the council was brought into disrepute by parties that have blatantly shown how they are not in council to work for the benefit of residents, but ‘for their own narrow gain’.

“I fully support the decision of Dlamini to take the illegal council sitting, and the illegal resolutions thereof, to court for them to be overturned. I am disappointed that certain officials have become the tools of politicians to effectively collapse service delivery and expedite regime change at all costs,” she explains.

The Ekurhuleni ANC acting regional secretary Moipone Mhlongo says the DA is abusing the courts in a desperate effort to retain power.

“It is now a common cause that the DA has no regard for democracy in its hunger to cling to power while areas where the majority of the working class live are deprived of services. [Along] with other political parties, we saw no alternative but to remove them from power,” she adds.