The Johannesburg City Council has adjourned for the election of a new mayor on Friday morning. This after Dr Mpho Phalatse was ousted as Executive Mayor of Johannesburg on Thursday.
She was voted out in a movement of no confidence. The movement was tabled by three events, the African Transformation Movement (ATM), African Independent Congress (AIC) and Al-Jamah-Ah get together.
The movement was handed by 140 to 129 votes on the Johannesburg Council sitting in Braamfontein. This comes after the Democratic Alliances (DA) failed to safe a majority in council after negotiations with the Patriotic Alliance, a former ally, collapsed.
The DA-led multi-get together coalition wanted the Patriotic Alliance’s eight seats to save Phalatse from being eliminated as mayor. But talks broke down.
‘Throw to the wolves’
Action SA believes the DA has thrown Phalatse to the wolves. The get together is accusing the DA of aiding the no-confidence movement to take away Phalatse by rejecting a deal it had brokered with the Patriotic Alliance.
In a bid to save Phalatse, Action SA gave away two MMC positions to the PA to safe a majority within the council. But the deal was allegedly rejected by the Democratic Alliance regardless of being broadly supported by members of its coalition.
Action SA’s Bongani Baloyi says, “Let me thank the outgoing mayor for her sterling work and for being a true public servant and for steering this ship under difficult circumstances. She experienced today what Herman [Mashaba] experienced previously. She has been let down by her party. The DA has been a consistently reluctant partner. They had no interest in protecting this coalition. We lost today as a coalition because we did not have the majority. PA was going to give us a majority with 8 seats. But, unfortunately, when we had a confirmed deal that the PA was accepting, the DA changed a number of things.”
