The Nelson Mandela Bay special council meeting that was supposed to hear a motion of no confidence in Mayor Athol Trollip will resume on Tuesday morning at 10:00.

Trollip, who was recently re-elected as the Democratic Alliance’s (DA's) federal chairperson, was confident going into the meeting.

The coalition government has had a minority of 59 seats in the 120-seat council since a fallout with the United Democratic Movement. However, they recently secured the Patriotic Alliance as a coalition partner, taking them back up to 60, and the African Independent Congress have also declared their support to the coalition, giving them a potential majority vote of 61.

There are six motions that have been tabled, which include:

• To remove Trollip as mayor
• To remove DA councillor Jonathan Lawack as speaker of council
• To remove DA councillor Werner Senekal as chief whip
• To rescind the decision of council in November last year, which dissolved the post of deputy mayor
• To vote in a new deputy mayor
• To remove all political heads of municipal portfolios

The meeting, which was initially scheduled for March 29, was abandoned after it degenerated into chaos over a dispute about the order of items on the agenda.

Lawack postponed the meeting "indefinitely" and walked out of the council chamber.

The matter, however, spilled over into the general council meeting as opposition parties continued to argue over the matter.

It was finally agreed that the special council meeting would proceed within 14 days so that core compliance issues scheduled for the general council could be dealt with.

The issue of the order of the agenda is expected to be a bone of contention again after a notice of the meeting instructed councillors to bring along the original agenda, because it will not be reproduced.