This comes after the party lost the position of Speaker in the Mangaung Metro to the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday (29/3).

DA councillor Maryke Davies was elected the new Speaker through a secret ballot vote during a special council sitting.

Davies beat the ANC’s candidate Lawrence Mathae. 96 councillors voted and Davies won with 53 votes while Mathae received 40 votes. It is believed that some ANC councillors voted with the opposition, reports SABC News.

First time in new democratic South Africa

It is the first time in the new democratic South Africa that Mangaung Metro has a new council speaker from a different political party.

Following the resignations of former mayor Mxolisi Siyonzana and speaker Stefani Lockman-Naidoo, opposition parties, along with some ANC members, say change is needed.

The election of the new Speaker from the DA left many in shock.

The spokesperson for the ANC in Mangaung, Ncamile Nxangisa, says the party has elevated the issue of ill-discipline by some party members to the provincial executive committee.

"As the ANC Mangaung, we are deeply concerned and disturbed by reports that seek to suggest that as the ANC, we would force the councillors of the ANC into one of the municipal buildings and take a lie detector test against their will. I want to confirm that no such activity has happened, even though historically as the ANC we are on record as having raised issues of ill discipline among councillors of the ANC in Mangaung."

News24 reported the ANC instructed its members in the council to vote for the Provincial Executive Committee member Gregory Nthatisi as the preferred candidate for mayor and the regional chairperson, Lawrence Mathae, as the Speaker. 

However, some disgruntled ANC members in the Mangaung Council, who belong to the slates that lost the provincial conference to the new chairperson, Mxolisi Dukwana, defied the party’s instructions and voted with the opposition in what was believed to be a revenge move. 

Their defiance angered the party's provincial leadership, who reacted by calling all members to a polygraph test immediately after the results had been announced.

The disgruntled members believed the results of the provincial conference a few weeks ago, when Dukwana was elected, were rigged to favour him.

Revenge by ‘donating’ Mangaung to opposition

According to insiders, the disgruntled members had vowed to avenge the loss of the provincial conference by “donating” Mangaung by voting with the opposition at the city council election.

After the announcement of the voting results, which saw Mathae losing to Davies, the party demanded answers from their members. Sensing that the position of the mayor could also be lost to the opposition, the ANC summoned all their members and hastily arranged a polygraph test in a bid to find out which members voted with the opposition and lied to their leadership.

Insiders said the party realised that on Thursday, the council would vote for the mayor, and they needed to take action to save the mayor's position.

Netwerk24 reported the ANC kept his Mangaung Metro councillors for three hours in the Bram Fischer Building.

The DA caucus leader, Johan Pretorius, said the new Speaker, Davies, had to call law enforcement to free the ANC members, after which they were finally let go.

“The ANC now wants to boycott Thursday's special council meeting. They do not want a quorum when the mayor and chief whip are chosen. They fear the same will happen if some members agree with the opposition again.”

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Mathae, the former general manager of refuse removal in the Mangaung Metro, recently resigned from his position to make himself available for the position of speaker. He was only sworn in as a councillor on Tuesday.

This was not the first time that political parties resorted to polygraph tests after losing a top position in the country.

ActionSA in Tshwane subjected their councillors to a polygraph test after their DA-led coalition lost the mayorship position to Murunwa Makwarela of the ANC-EFF-Cope alliance last month. 

OFM News