The election comes eight months after the last gathering of the council, which has been in turmoil due to disagreements between political parties.
New City of Tshwane mayor, Randall Williams, makes a speech in a council meeting on 30 October 2020 after being elected mayor. Picture: @DAGauteng/Twitter
JOHANNESBURG – The City of Tshwane has a new mayor.
The Democratic Alliance (DA)’s Randall Williams has been elected the new mayor of the embattled municipality.
JUST IN: The DAs Randall Williams has been elected the new mayor pf Tshwane. #TshwaneCouncil TM
EWN Reporter (@ewnreporter) October 30, 2020
The election comes eight months after the last gathering of the council, which has been in turmoil due to disagreements between political parties.
The city is governed by the DA through a coalition after all political parties failed to gain a majority vote during the 2016 local government elections.
Williams said that he did not take his new role for granted.
His appointment comes after the courts reversed the provincial government’s decision to place the metro under administration and dissolve its council.
‘TIME TO PUT CITY’S RESIDENTS FIRST’
Williams said that he was ready to hit the ground running, telling council members that he already had a strategy in place to ensure that the metro prioritised its core business.
In his first address to the council following his election, Williams said that it was time to put the city’s residents first.
The metropolitan municipality has struggled to deliver services to residents in the months that the council has been inactive.
This was due to a decision by the Gauteng executive council to place it under administration and dissolve the council following countless failed meetings by councillors as political parties were at loggerheads.
Williams – a qualified attorney who hails from the Cape Flats in Cape Town – has been a member of the DA for years, having cut his teeth in politics in his youth.
He served as a member of the mayoral committee for Economics and Development and Spatial Planning and as chairperson of the municipal appeals tribunal between 2016 and 2019.
