ActionSA said on Thursday it will abstain from the motion of no confidence being tabled against Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero, arguing that the motion risks becoming “another round of musical chairs in the mayoralty, with no tangible benefit for residents”.

Last week, the Al Jama-ah party proposed the motion, which the United Democratic Movement seconded.

Last year, Morero survived a motion which was filed by several of its coalition partners.

ActionSA Johannesburg Caucus leader Marcel Coutriers said that while Morero’s administration had been “objectively disastrous,” there was no clear or credible alternative plan for better government.

Coutriers said ActionSA was disturbed about late-night phone calls to party members, allegedly soliciting votes.

“No effort was made to hold such engagements when this motion was first submitted and these same parties fell over themselves to assist the African National Congress in removing ActionSA from the position of Speaker in which the party was holding the failing government to account,” he said.

Coutriers expressed that ActionSA was prepared to participate in constructive efforts with parties to improve governance and service delivery but claimed that other parties seemed “singularly focused on power struggles and positions, using these motions to that end”.

He said that ActionSA would not entertain “political manoeuvring” by coalition parties that appeared “incapable of working together”, and added that the party did not want to be responsible for inadvertently installing "another Kabelo Gwamanda", a controversial past mayor of Johannesburg.

“Residents of Joburg will recall that ActionSA adopted a similar approach to abstain when the Democratic Alliance brought a motion of no confidence which was equally ill-conceived because of a lack of engagement with other parties, and no plans for a governing alternative,” Coutriers said.