Listening to the silent majority

[95]

My research into events in Lekoa led to another somewhat disheartening discovery. Relations between the Lekoa Town Council and the Transvaal Provincial Administration, and in particular with John Mavuso, had become somewhat turbulent. This surprised me, since my own contacts with John Mavuso had been positive and businesslike. Mayor Kolisang had, following his predicament as a result of the rebellion by his own party members, appealed for urgent assistance from the tpa. The help was given. Mr Olaus van Zyl dashed down to Lekoa, addressed the council, and as reported before, a kind of cold war armistice between the feuding parties was established. But Mayor Kolisang moved resolutely and asked a law firm in Vereeniging to bring the case be-

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fore the Johannesburg Supreme Court. It ruled in Kolisang's favour and of course, the dissident councillors' vote to oust the mayor was declared null and void.

Further research brought to light that the disidents from the vrrp in collaboration with local Sofasonke politicians, were continuing their sabotage of the mayor in spite of the Supreme Court ruling, and in spite of Mr Olaus van Zyl's ‘dressing down’ the council. Once more, Kolisang had appealed to the tpa this time directly to John Mavuso, to please intervene on their behalf. But to the surprise of the mayor and the remaining vrrp Councillors, John Mavuso refused to meet with the mayor and his associates seperately. Knowing Mavuso by now rather well, I telephoned him, intending to double check some of the information I had collected.

Rather to my surprise, Mavuso reacted with irritation to my telephone call. He seemed clearly annoyed that as a foreign journalist I had come across some of the methods and practices of the tpa. At least, this is what I assumed, noting his emotional reaction to my question as to whether it was true that he refused to have further meetings with Mayor Kolisang and associates. ‘Obviously, you have heard but one side of the story,’ he said, which was quite correct, which was why I was calling him then. ‘They are not giving you all the facts,’ he continued. ‘In fact, they are not telling you the truth, so my advice to you, Mr Oltmans, is to stay out of this matter altogether.’ I replied that I was aware there were two sides to every story and that I was equally aware of not having uncovered all the facts. ‘I met last week for an entire day with both parties, the dissident councillors and Mayor Samuel Kolisang and the members of the vrrp,’ said John Mavuso, ‘and there is no use my meeting with them again. I have a signed agreement by both parties, including the signature of Kolisang and the members of the vrrp.’

I asked vrrp circles whether the meeting Mavuso had referred to had taken place indeed. ‘Yes,’ I was told. ‘But Mavuso had come to meet and talk. He brought with him from tpa headquarters in Pretoria a fully-prepared statement, to be signed by both parties to the conflict on a take-it-or-leave-it basis!’ The text had represented a virtual ultimatum, I was assured. ‘All the tpa demanded from us was compliance with their wishes, drawn up prior to ever talking to us.’ I asked, of course, why the mayor had signed it if he disagreed with the method and contents. ‘Well, the mayor was practically forced to sign that document,’

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my informant stated, ‘but upon further careful study the next day, we concluded it to be without value at all, since it did not take into account, for instance, the existing laws in townships. That's why we wanted to meet again with John Mavuso, because we had discovered that the document we had signed had an unlawful basis. We wanted both Mavuso and Olaus van Zyl to return to Lekoa and meet the entire Lekoa Town Council. But they avoided this. The tpa, I was assured, did not approach matters of concern for the black residents by sitting down with us, and explaining how the tpa sees things. No. They simply handed us this prepared statement written in Pretoria's tpa offices and demanded our signatures. They apparently overlooked two paragraphs in their document which totally destroyed the executive powers of the mayor of Lekoa. Firt of all, paragraph II said, “The mayor and the deputy mayor will refrain from debating issues tabled in the Council meeting”.’^74.

‘According to parliamentary Laws and Regulations,’ my informant said, ‘if you preside over a meeting of democratically-elected members, as after all the Lekoa Council is, and you intend to table a motion, you must automatically relinquish your seat and give it to your deputy. That way, you, as chairman, can propose a motion and get it passed. For the tpa to announce that there was to be from now on a set of new standing orders regulating town council proceedings, is hardly acceptable. The same goes, of course, for the deputy mayor of Lekoa, also under siege from the dissidents of the vrrp. If she wants to table a motion, she has likewise to relinquish her seat. The tpa conveniently overlooked these facts of normal parliamentary procedures.’

Apparently the Lekoa Town Council had elected three committees. The First Committee was removed through a motion of no-confidence, after 18 vrrp councilors crossed to the other side. The Second Committee was removed the same way, through a motion of no-confidence. The Third Committee got into trouble, because the councillors who served on it had been suspended. The council therefore had to vote for a new Third Committee (on Management) representing all the townships that make up Lekoa city. ‘Next arrived Mr Olaus van Zyl and John Mavuso,’ my informant said, ‘who simply announced to us that the de facto

74. This tpa specification was curious, since the dissident and illegal action taken by some of the council members had been expressly aimed at the mayor and deputy mayor

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councillors should be immediately reinstated into the First Committee (Executive), and the 1988 freely-elected members should be removed from power. You must remember,’ I was told, ‘that he first batch of members of the Executive First Committee had been suspended following their unlawful behaviour, which included physically attacking the mayor and some of his aides in the mayor's office, stealing his official and private papers, and even taking his car keys with them. The coup against the mayor backfired, even in the Supreme Court, and here, the tpa was defiantly reinstating the subversive elements as if nothing had ever happened. But, what Mavuso and van Zyl overlooked was that, in order to remove the Executive First Committee, a motion of no confidence must be passed first. That is the law. Therefore, upon further study of the ultimatum type of tpa document, actually presented by these two gentlemen as a fait accompli, we telephoned John Mavuso, after further reflection, for his help. We mistakenly assumed that he would render this help and stay rigorously on the side of the existing law. We urgently pleaded with him for another, this time informal meeting to discuss our apprehensions and doubts. But he simply refused.’ I knew what my informant was talking about, because I had experienced a similar incomprehensible reaction from Mr John Mavuso.

Jabulani Patose, the mayor's troubleshooter: ‘No black man or woman was involved when the tpa drew up its rules and regulations for our townships. We were indeed simply presented with a well-baked cake, called the Black Local Authorities Act. Only much later were we to find out that some parts of this so-called beautiful cake were hardly well done. Of course, we were told and assured that what was precooked in Pretoria was excellent for the people. Okay, we accepted their proposals. So we were indeed earnestly trying here in Lekoa to share these structures and proposals with our people in the townships. The information you received is indeed correct because all of a sudden two people came from the tpa, John Mavuso and Olaus van Zyl, who flatly undermined our frenzied efforts to make it all work. All of a sudden these two tpa officials sided with the dissidents, who had behaved illegally and damaged the entire system. Then we were also sabotaged by the Soweto Sofasonke Party, which is disrupting everything within sight with their radical approach in Lekoa and other townships. They do so even in Kwa Thema, where your friend Matilda Mothlaping is mayor.’

My 27-year-old friend Patose continued, ‘So we reported all these il-

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legal and subversive proceedings in the townships to John Mavuso in the tpa asking his support. What do we find? A closed door. First of all, Mr John Mavuso should have been aware, before he sided with the rebels and Sofasonke, what actually had happened in Lekoa, and what the troublemakers had done here. Because, let's face it, these dissidents staged an outright coup in the council of Lekoa offices by removing the mayor and the deputy mayor by force, and try to run the town council in a wholly unlawful manner. It might look at first sight like a minor incident to some people in Pretoria, but such unlawful behaviour, when officially condoned, could very well grow into something much bigger and much more serious. The type of councillors involved in the coup attempt should have been removed from power completely. They are renegades. I don't think they have the brain power to lead our people. What they did was actually a form of terrorism. It should not have been condoned by the tpa. If such actions are allowed at local levels, it will spread to national levels as well. John Mavuso and the tpa should have immediately removed these councillors from office, or at least, he should have suspended them until the courts could have decided the case, which is now pending. In the meantime, why should these people be allowed to go on taking part in council work?’

‘What is Pretoria expecting from us?’ asked Jabulani Patose. ‘As it stands, the tpa is now turning a fragile democratic process, begun by the vrrp on October 26, 1988, into a mere yoke. The town council structures, designed in Pretoria, were opposed by some of us. As a matter of fact, at first we did not want to have anything to do with them. Now, a 71-year-old-man, Samuel Kolisang, came into power with the overwhelming support of the residents, just because he used his brains, and we were using the existing power structures to the letter. We were keeping our election promises to the letter as well. We analysed the struggle of our people carefully. We offered them a precise and concrete program, as contained in our constitution, in order to serve the people well. We all, including myself, want to learn, and are learning within the framework of existing political structures. I myself would like some day to become a public administrator, in order to contribute to the future of our country and our people. That's why I do want to become more knowledgeable. I intend to become a capable person. I decided I have to begin here in Lekoa Town Council. Perhaps, after 5 years, I can stand as a councillor here, or somewhere else. Some day, I could probably

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manage a township. Local authorities are like guidelines to familiarise ourselves with government.’