South Africa: Job Vacancy - Mayor of Joburg Wanted!

Filip Maljković / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Johannesburg City Council Chamber building in 2018.
30 October 2023
Scrolla (Johannesburg)
By Zukile Majova

Another change of government awaits the City of Johannesburg as the ANC and the EFF experienced an irreversible breakdown in their unofficial partnership.

The city has already had four executive mayors since the November 2021 local government elections.

Now the ANC in Gauteng is convinced that its alliance with the EFF in Gauteng municipalities has run its course. The provincial executive committee has taken the matter to the party's leadership, which has also accepted that the open marriage must end.

This will affect the City of Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, Johannesburg and the West Rand, and Mogale City.

Former Gauteng premier and ANC head of political education David Makhura said there is a danger that EFF members of the mayoral committee in Ekurhuleni are undermining local ANC councillors.

He said the two parties were fishing in the same waters for votes, and the ANC decision to give the EFF a leg up in the metro could cost it votes in the coming election.

The resolution of the ANC national executive committee to drop the EFF vindicates former Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina, who was punished by the ANC bigwigs for sabotaging an ANC plan to support an EFF candidate for mayor of Ekurhuleni.

Masina said a lot of ANC deployees in Ekurhuleni now agree that he was right: the ANC partnership with the EFF could not work.

"Ultimately, comrade, those who are opposed to the ANC and its ideas are now found in our communities doing work that should be done by our councillors, making it difficult for our councillors.

"If we don't change the course of history as it is now, we stand to lose the election next year.

"And this will be our own goal, out of our own mistakes, greed and wanting to stay in power for no reason," said Masina.

New ANC Youth League president Collen Malatji said the party was parting ways with the EFF and the Patriotic Alliance.

"We have seen criminals taking over power... in Gauteng, municipalities have been taken over by criminals, drug dealers and former criminals.

"We have the PA, led by criminals in Johannesburg. We have the EFF, led by cigarette smugglers in Johannesburg. All of these criminals will take over this country if we don't stand up," said Malatji.

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