The African National Congress (ANC) has ousted the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Dr Beyers Naudé Local Municipality in Graaff-Reinett and took control of the council after its members were elected mayor and council chief whip on Tuesday. 

This happened just more than two weeks after DA duo of mayor Ewald Loock, and the party's chief whip in the council, Ricardo Smith, were removed from their positions via a motion of no-confidence tabled by the ANC on 18 May. 

The council had been without a mayor and chief whip since the removal of Loock and Smith because the DA had refused to vote for their replacements.

But on Tuesday, during the elections in which the DA participated, the ANC duo of Willem Säfers and Thembekile Spogter were elected mayor and chief whip respectively. 

Voting had deadlocked until council speaker Cheslin Felix from the Compatriots of South Africa (CSA) used his voting power to settle the deadlock. 

CSA and ANC are in a coalition. 

The municipality is a hung council, with the DA occupying 10 seats. The Freedom Front Plus and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have one each. The ANC has 11 seats and the CSA has one.

The DA is up in arms, threatening to lay criminal charges against the municipal manager Edward Rankwana and Felix for presiding over what it called illegal elections.

The Municipal Structures Act is absolutely clear on the processes that need to be followed should there be a draw when voting for two candidates.

"The meeting must be adjourned and reconvened within seven days. If there remains a draw following a second round of voting, the position is decided by lot - more often than not, a coin toss," DA MP and the party's constituency leader in the municipality, Samantha Graham-Maré, said.

However, Graham-Maré said, it appeared that the law only applied to other parties and not the ANC or CSA. 

"In a completely illegal act, the speaker decided that he would make up his own rules and use his casting vote to settle the deadlock. Despite knowing better, this move was supported by the municipal manager, Dr Edward Rankwana, and the full ANC caucus," added Graham-Maré.  

She said the mayor and the chief whip were both appointed in this manner.

"This is completely contrary to the law," said Graham-Maré.

"The DA-led coalition and the EFF were in attendance. We were there in good faith. We asked for clarity with respect to the still outstanding legal opinion on the removal of the mayor. There is still no clarity on that."

She said the party would also write to the Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Xolile Nqatha, to request that he suspend Felix and the entire ANC caucus who were complicit, pending an investigation. 

The ANC said it would not react to the DA's claims. 

ANC Sarah Baartman regional secretary Johannes Hobbs said:

"We are really not interested in the cry-babies of the DA. All they [are] good at is to throw insults. As ANC, we will not waste our time on reacting to their insults. The ANC-elected mayor has a responsibility to put the people of Beyers Naudé first and address service delivery challenges with the speed it deserves."

Loock and Smith, who were not lucky when the motion of no-confidence was tabled against them on 18 May, had survived an earlier vote of no-confidence after a meeting called to oust them on 4 May, collapsed following a walkout by councillors from the DA, FF Plus and EFF.

The DA had previously boycotted the council meetings, demanding Rankwana prove that Loock's removal complied with Section 53 or 57 of the Municipal Structures Act.

The council did not meet a quorum to vote without the DA.

The council had been struggling to elect a new mayor and whip owing to the standoff between Rankwana's office and the DA.