Zwane was removed through a vote of no confidence Tuesday afternoon (2/8) during a council meeting held at Harry Gwala Multipurpose Centre in Zamdela, Sasolburg. The municipal spokesperson Gino Alberts said the ANC, supported by 31 councillors, brought the motion. 

In a heated council meeting the DA members staged a walkout. The DA councillors maintained the meeting was illegal. The council is expected to vote for a new mayor within seven days.

Before the meeting, the DA Federal Council Chairperson Helen Zille said the party wanted to prevent the multimillion-rand looting of the municipality. She picketed outside the venue together with Free State Leader Roy Jankielsohn. She accused opposition parties of trying to remove Zwane from office so that corruption could prevail. 

Zille claimed the EFF supported the ANC to remove Zwane, showing they were willing to allow corruption in Metsimaholo.

EFF Free State Chairperson Maphaule Liphoko said the notion that the DA sought to prevent corruption in Metsimaholo was nonsensical. "I think people must be taken into confidence – the reason why there are no roads ... potholes have riddled the streets of Metsimaholo ... is precisely because of the corrupt DA. 

“Now today, Helen Zille is here to shake her body and wants to tell us that she is against corruption. That cannot be the case. [She can't] come from her air-conditioned house in Cape Town to come tell people of Metsimaholo how much of a better pain they must feel. They know this nonsensical Zwane, and what he has done here.”

Liphoko added Zwane is being used as a tool “while service delivery is non-existent” (sic). “The only thing he has done here was to patch a tyre (sic) road of about 200 km and that was it. So we have taken a stance, if the ANC was not going to do it, we were going to do it.”

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