A bid to elect a new Bitou municipality mayor hit another snag on Monday morning when opposition parties failed to show up.
Council was due to elect a mayor on Monday after the ousting of Active United Front (AUF) leader Peter Lobese from the hot seat on April 16.
Two previous meetings to elect a new mayor also failed.
At one meeting no agreement was reached on who should wear the mayoral chain, and the other was cancelled in the 11th hour.
On May 4, the vote ended in a tie, with ANC councillor Sandiso Gcabayi and the DA’s Bill Nel each receiving six votes in the 13-seat Plettenberg Bay council.
Lobese was not present in that meeting.
Another meeting scheduled for May 19 was cancelled in the 11th hour, with the DA and AUF trying to hold the meeting on their own.
However, because there was no speaker, municipal manager or representative from the department of co-operative governance, the seven councillors could not proceed with the meeting.
On Monday morning, council speaker Euan Wildeman was forced to postpone the meeting as the six ANC councillors did not make a quorum.
“Of course the AUF and DA councillors did not pitch so I postponed the meeting for half an hour as per the rules of council indicate and they still did not pitch up after that.
“I have now set a new time for the date and time for the meeting, which is May 31 at 9am at the council chambers,” he said.
Wildeman then directed further questions to municipal spokesperson Andile Namntu, who said: “The council sat today and the majority of councillors did not come, which led to the meeting being postponed as there was no quorum.
“There was no apology from those councillors and according to the municipal manager, he would have to write a letter to the speaker to investigate what happened and why they did not turn up.
“Until then the status quo remains,” he added.
The ANC’s Gcabayi continues to act as the executive mayor.
DA caucus leader Bill Nel asked to be contacted later as he was in a meeting.
The AUF’s Lobese did not respond to texts or calls from The Herald.
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