The mayor of Ditsobotla local municipality in the North West resigned a few hours after she was elected to the position.
Elizabeth Lethoko of the Patriotic Alliance (PA) was elected as the new mayor on Monday during a heated council meeting.
Lethoko tendered her resignation letter to the newly elected speaker Fikile Jakeni. In a statement released on Monday, the PA said it is in full support of Lethoko’s decision to resign.
“It would be unconscionable of her to have continued in this role following display of blunt corruption in council today [Monday]. She could not be complicit with such behaviour, nor be asked to answer for it,” said the PA in a statement.
In her letter, Lethoko said her resignation comes after the ANC “surprisingly” tabled a motion to have the administrator be appointed as the municipal manager.
The embattled North West municipality has been run into the ground after a feud in council in 2020 saw two mayors and two separate councils trying to run the area.
In the last two year the municipality was led by both Tsholofelo Moreo and Tebogo Buthelezi from the ANC.
The council removed Buthelezi in December 2020 in a vote of no confidence and elected Moreo as the new mayor.
Buthelezi took the matter to court and was reinstated. However, he was then removed again from the mayoral seat by the ANC caucus through another motion of no confidence, and Moreo was reinstated.
For the first time since 1994, the election saw the ANC fail to win an outright majority in the municipality. It received 39.82% for the votes, down from 51%in the 2021 polls.
Source: News24, Eyewitness News, IOL, Sowetan Live, image from Twitter: @POWER987News