The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro has a new mayor. The DA’s Retief Odendaal was elected to the position, shortly after 02:00 on Thursday morning, at a council meeting.

Just a few hours before, the ANC’s Eugene Johnson and two others were voted out of their positions by a motion of no confidence.

Johnson, her deputy, Buyelwa Mafaya, and the chief whip, Wandile Jikeka, were removed from their positions.

The meeting was called by the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), and seconded by the Freedom Front Plus (FF+).

Sixty-two councillors voted to remove the trio, with 58 against.

This was the third attempt to remove Johnson, who was elected mayor by a one-vote margin over the DA’s Eastern Cape leader, Nqaba Bhanga.

In December, the FF+ and ACDP lobbied other parties to endorse a motion of no confidence in Johnson, but it never came to fruition.

Johnson was elected as mayor on 22 November as part of the coalition government, which is now in tatters.

The opposition had been plotting to remove Johnson, and blamed her for the water crisis in the region.

This, despite the fact that the water situation had been present long before the Johnson-led coalition government took over.

On Wednesday, Johnson’s party, the ANC, and water entity Amatola Water faced a huge backlash after it emerged that a massive water leak, which had been unfixed since November 2021, had lost the metro 1.5 million litres of water a month.

The DA said it discovered the leak at the town’s northern areas during an oversight inspection on Tuesday.

Last week, the party said the municipality had fixed only 18 of the reported 817 leaks – even less than the week before, when only 40 of 1 018 reported leaks were fixed.

It added that there were nearly 2 000 unattended water leaks in the metro.

The political turmoil in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro is likely to continue.