DA councillor Mpho Phalatse has been elected executive mayor of Johannesburg, SA’s richest and biggest city, during a marathon inaugural council meeting on Monday.
Phalatse was elected into the hot seat with 144 votes, beating ANC councillor and former Joburg mayor Mpho Moerane who received 121 votes.
The results were announced at 9.15pm at the Brixton Multipurpose Centre a few hours after another DA councillor, Vasco da Gama, was elected council speaker with 147 votes, trouncing ANC councillor Eunice Mgcina who received 118 votes.
Phalatse served as health and social development member of the mayoral committee (MMC) during Herman Mashaba’s tenure as DA’s executive mayor.
Mashaba served only three years of his five year term as DA mayor from 2016. He quit the DA and announced his resignation as DA Joburg mayor in October 2019 and went on to form his political party ActionSA, which received 16.05% of voter support in Joburg during the recent polls.
Speaking to the media moments before the mayoral election results were announced, Mashaba said ActionSA voted with the DA to get the ANC out of the Joburg metro.
“The DA negotiated in bad faith ... coming out at the last minute, embarrassing us because they wanted to give this municipality to the ANC and we said this is not going to happen. What is find very interesting is the participation of the EFF,” said Mashaba.
“We are surprised to see the EFF party to this. We are glad that we have removed the ANC from government. We did it in Ekurhuleni, we are going to it tomorrow [Tuesday] in Tshwane. We were also going to do it in eThekwini, but unfortunately the council collapsed.”
Mashaba said: “DA does not have any coalition [agreement] with us. But we put SA first. We are ready as ActionSA and our coalition partners, if they [DA] want to talk to us beyond this, our doors are open.
“But if they want to talk to us they must talk to us with the EFF. We don't want the games of divide and rule. We voted for them as one bloc. They must talk to us as one bloc [of opposition political parties].”
In the build-up to the local government elections on November 1, in which the DA received 26.14% voter support in the city, Phalatse said her party would work with the private sector to deliver services to the municipality's 5-million residents.
She promised to address the R200bn infrastructure backlog in the metro by opening up the city for more private sector involvement and to create a conducive environment for businesses to thrive to create much-needed jobs.
Phalatse, a qualified medical doctor, had said her party would increase investment in repair and maintenance of infrastructure.
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