Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) mayor Athol Trollip is confident ahead of the motion of no confidence he faces on Thursday, saying that whatever the outcome of the vote, the DA will continue to fight for the citizens the municipality serves.
But he says the motion brought by the EFF, which sided with the DA after the 2016 local government elections to wrest the metropolitan from the ANC, will fail. He described it as a "gut feeling", and was not willing to disclose any further details.
The EFF and the DA are in a turf war over the municipality, with Trollip caught in the middle.
"I believe they [the EFF] are going to fail on Thursday. The smaller political parties are starting to open their eyes to throwing their lot in with the ANC and the EFF ... they will be wiped out. For those courted by the ANC, their leadership and national structures now know that doing so will mean their political ideology is done," Trollip said in an interview with HuffPost.
"I have a gut feeling it won't go their way ... Let's just say it's a gut feeling."
The EFF is attempting to hold the ANC and the DA to ransom in the NMB municipality, planning to kick Trollip to the curb, while at the same time threatening to leave the city's administration defunct if the ANC does not provide a mayoral replacement that meets its standards.
Tensions in the DA's informal coalition with smaller parties grew last year, when the DA moved to axe United Democratic Movement (UDM) member and deputy mayor Mongameli Bobani, who faces allegations of corruption.
Then, at a national level, EFF leader Julius Malema made good his threat to "punish" the DA for voting against the party's parliamentary motion on land expropriation by getting his red berets in the municipality to schedule a motion of no confidence in Trollip.
"I have been in politics for a long time now, so I have become accustomed to this kind of treachery. We believe we have done a good job. It will take more than 18 months to bring complete change to the municipality, so a lot more can be done. We changed [NMB] from the second least to the second most trusted municipality in one year," Trollip said.
"For Malema to 'punish' us based on the colour of my skin or for our party's views on land expropriation without compensation is astounding. These things have not changed since they supported me in the last motion of no confidence."
He said the EFF are out of options.
"The EFF only had two strings to their bow. The ANC took away [Jacob Zuma] and decided to move for land expropriation without compensation at their December conference. The only thing they have now is race ... Their excuse is disingenuous."
Although the EFF holds only six of the 120 seats on the NMB council, its threat is substantial because of the balance of power.
In the 2016 local government elections, the DA acquired 57 seats to the ANC's 50. The other seats went to the EFF (6), the UDM (2), the African Christian Democratic Party (1), the Congress of the People (Cope – 1), the African Independent Congress (1), the Patriotic Alliance (1) and the United Front of the Eastern Cape (1).
Because no party held a majority, the EFF, UDM and Cope threw their weight behind the DA to oust the ANC and install a DA mayor. The EFF and the UDM together have the numbers to tip the balance of forces between the DA and the ANC, although the DA can hang on with support from four of the single-seat parties.
"The EFF overplayed their hand. The ANC is now saying they won't be contaminated be the EFF's racial war. So this might backfire on them."
Trollip was unperturbed by the possibility that he might be proven wrong, should the EFF motion succeed in unseating him.
"If we lose and have to go back to the wilderness for another two-and-a-half years, we will fight from there," he said. "We are more than capable of being an effective opposition again."