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Athol Trollip has lost his bid to overturn his ousting as Nelson Mandela Bay mayor in the Eastern Cape High Court on Thursday.
Judge Elna Revelas dismissed the Democratic Alliance and its coalition partners' urgent application on Thursday morning, after judgment was reserved last week.
"The main... application is dismissed. The applicants are jointly and severally liable to pay the respondents’ costs, including the costs of two counsel," said Revelas.
The UDM's Mongameli Bobani therefore remains mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay.
The court also announced that Mbulelo Manyati, the sole DA councillor to abstain during the motion of no confidence, was still a councillor.
Manyati was therefore still a councillor on the day that Trollip and Speaker Jonathan Lawack were voted out, and formed part of the council sitting's quorum.
Revelas said Manyati will continue to be a councillor until he chooses to resign, or until the conclusion of disciplinary proceedings against him, "properly brought in compliance with the DA’s constitution."
Trollip was removed by the ANC, EFF and UDM as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay on August 27 following a motion of no confidence.
The DA's federal executive had announced on the day that Manyati's membership had immediately ceased following his abstention in the vote of no confidence.
The DA caucus then walked out of the meeting, leaving the opposition coalition to vote in Bobani.
Three days after his ousting, Trollip and his coalition partners – Cope, the ACDP and the Patriotic Alliance – lodged an application seeking urgent review.
Advocate Dali Mpofu represented the opposition coalition in the High Court, arguing that the DA made a "miscalculated decision" to leave the council meeting before it had concluded its business of the day.
He said walking out of a meeting is a strategy used popularly across political spaces, but those walking out needed to ensure there was no quorum thereafter.
The judge ordered the DA and its coalition partners pay the legal costs of the defendants in two matters.
