Democratic Alliance (DA) Gauteng provincial leader Solly Msimanga has announced that his party will be presenting former Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink as its preferred mayoral candidate, as it hopes to engage with the African National Congress (ANC).

Brink was removed from office on Thursday after the African National Congress (ANC) and ActionSA joined forces, with the help of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), to vote him out in a motion of no confidence.

Those against were the DA, Freedom Front Plus and the African Christian Democratic Party. One councillor from the Inkatha Freedom Party abstained.

Msimanga was unpacking the Tshwane Council meeting and the outcome of the motion of no confidence against Brink, on Friday, where he pointed out that the DA will attempt to engage with the ANC and other political parties.

“I am engaging and will be engaging throughout this whole week, possibly next week, with other political parties as well. We will still be engaging with the ANC, whether we are doing it at the national level or local level, we will still attempt to reach out to them at the provincial level to see if we are able to find each other,” he said.

The council has 14 days to vote in a new mayor.

ActionSA is set to field Tshwane's deputy mayor Nasiphi Moya as its mayoral candidate, while the ANC in Tshwane said it is expected to submit names in line with the party's deployment processes.

Brink said DA leaders “made every attempt” to persuade the ANC’s national leadership to withdraw the motion of no confidence against him, saying this would have allowed the future of the city to be deliberated under conditions of “relative stability”, while the existing Mayoral Committee continued its work.

“…had the ANC acceded to this request, there would have been time and opportunity to devise a settlement in the best interest of the people of Tshwane and Gauteng,” he said.

Brink said the constant changing of mayors was a cause of deteriorating municipal governance and service delivery.

“But the ANC, with the endorsement of its so-called National Working Committee, actively gave the go-ahead for the motion of no confidence, signalling not just bad faith towards the DA, but strengthening the negotiating position of the EFF,” said Msimanga.

Brink said it was the ANC who placed Tshwane under provincial administration in 2020 and caused “financial devastation”, adding that it was also the ANC, with the help of ActionSA, who “choose chaos instead of cooperation” with the DA, at a time when Tshwane’s financial recovery was still at a “fragile point”.

The DA asserted that the multiparty coalition government, which previously included ActionSA, had made steady progress under Brink’s leadership.

Brink said in the past 18 months his administration had improved the finances of the city, improved audit outcomes and submitted financial statements on time.

He believes the credibility of those financial statements proved that Tshwane would receive an unqualified audit, saying this was important in restoring the City’s credibility.

He said Tshwane was on the road to financial governance improvement, under his leadership, pointing to the political instability the City had had in the past ten years.

“It is irresponsible in the extreme to bring down a City government without having any plan of what to put in its place. The uncertainty and instability caused by these political games will have real implications for the City of Tshwane and its residents,” he pointed out.

He said while ANC, EFF and ActionSA councillors were “dancing about the council chamber, celebrating the downfall of a DA mayor”, ABSA was considering the city’s application for a R800-million overdraft facility, as well as the rate at which it would be granted.

Brink assured that the DA would ensure that professional, non-political senior managers were not victimised and removed from their positions to make way for “pliable cadres”.

He also promised that the party will ensure that disciplinary process against the Rooiwal five, including the City’s Labour Court application to have them dismissed, is not reversed, also promising to ensure that the project to bring clean water to Hammanskraal is not sabotaged.