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Analysis 168

Mayor Geoff Makhubo in stronger position to consolidate Joburg

Mayor Geoff  Makhubo in stronger position to consolidate Joburg
Johannesburg mayor Geoffrey Makhubo speaks during an interview on December 18, 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images/Beeld/Deaan Vivier)

The Gauteng by-elections had a 24% turnout against an average of 37.83%, which may have reflected the weather or a gatvol electorate.

First published in Daily Maverick 168

The DA lost two seats to smaller parties and with an additional two vacancies, its hopes of replicating its 2016 city win in the 2021 local government election is looking increasingly slim.

Political power in Johannesburg no longer hangs in a precarious balance as it did when former mayor Herman Mashaba quit last year, causing a metropolitan political crisis.

Mayor Geoff Makhubo had to knit together a fragile alliance and last week, the ANC ended co-operation with the Patriotic Alliance (PA) because of a falling-out with that party’s leader, the ex-convict turned successful businessman Gayton McKenzie. The PA has won an additional seat in Riverlea-Pennyville, doubling its representation to two seats in the 270-seat council.

But the ANC is not worried as it campaigned hard to retain the seats it contested; and its alliance partner, the Al Jama-ah party, won the second seat in Lenasia.

Asked if the party would still vote with the ANC in Johannesburg, Al Jama-ah provincial chairperson Thapelo Amad said: “Through and through, we are with the ANC in a principled alliance.” The ANC’s multiparty coalition with Al Jama-ah, the IFP, the ACDP and others give it a 136-seat majority.

Party officials say that even if the DA, the EFF and the Patriotic Alliance vote together, the ANC-led voting coalition is still larger. Al Jama-ah is run on Islamic principles but is open to all and Imraan Moosa took the ward because he is from the area and has a long history of philanthropy and service in Lenasia.

He campaigned against land occupations that have festered for years; it’s an issue that has drawn cross-racial support as the parts of Lenasia impacted have homeowners who are mostly Indian but with many black property owners too.

In the Riverlea-Pennyville ward, the PA is represented by Fuad Erntzen who is from the area and is in a voting pact with Andile Mngxitama’s Black Land First Movement.  The EFF seats, 30, remain the same in Johannesburg.

Downcast DA confined to Johannesburg opposition

When the DA planned to become a governing party, Johannesburg was central to that dream. The party’s provincial leaders worked assiduously to win wards in the city as part of a big plan to expand out of the Western Cape about 10 years ago.

When it won control of Johannesburg and Pretoria in the 2016 municipal election in a vote that shocked the ANC, the party sealed a strategy to plan to win Gauteng in the 2019 national election. It moved its headquarters from Cape Town to Bruma in Johannesburg to follow the dream but failed to win the city as the ANC won the province with a razor-slim majority.

In the recriminations that followed, the DA leader, Mmusi Maimane, quit the party just days after mayor Mashaba quit. Mashaba went on to start his own party and this has left the DA’s Johannesburg caucus in trouble, according to city officials.

It is divided between those who support the new vision of recently elected party leader John Steenhuisen and federal council chairperson Helen Zille, and (largely black) members who are waiting to jump ship to Mashaba’s new party, Action SA. (The name has been rejected by the Independent Electoral Commission .)

These divisions meant that the party’s electoral machine (calls to voters, house visits, campaigning) did not gear as it usually does.

While the party’s leadership has blamed its by-election losses on identity politics, in the trenches, members say that the party’s new direction has alienated black, coloured and Indian voters and members.

The party has adopted a “colour-blind” approach, which it calls “non-racialism”, and in so doing it elected a top leadership in October that is not diverse. The impact on the Super Wednesday by-elections was clear: nationally, the DA retained 14 wards, lost nine wards and won two. (Nationally, the ANC retained 64 wards, lost two wards and won six new wards).

It will be a long climb back for a win in the Johannesburg caucus for the DA’s new Gauteng provincial leadership, which will be elected this weekend.

Can Makhubo fix Johannesburg?

The Gauteng by-elections had a 24% turnout against an average of 37.83%, which may have reflected the weather or a gatvol electorate. Johannesburg has more black middle-class voters than other wards. Sky-high electricity tariffs and declining services impact them.

City officials say that Makhubo has been hesitant to take out Mashaba’s appointees in agencies such as City Power and the Johannesburg Roads Agency, where the biggest service and billing problems are regularly reported. Johannesburg’s system of government is semi-privatised with most services contracted from agencies for electricity, water, sanitation and transport.

These are meant to operate on efficient business principles. It has not worked out that way as each of them is in crisis, according to various reports.

Three reports by the Johannesburg City Ombudsman published at the end of October revealed billing problems so systemic that the accounts residents get appear to be a thumb-suck. Covid-19 has seen the city revenue collections decline and service levels have plummeted.

Makhubo has less than a year to consolidate the ANC win or Johannesburg is headed for splintered votes as unhappy citizens look here, there and everywhere for a political home. DM168

This story has been amended to correct the party affiliation of councillor Fuad Erntzen.

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Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Roger Sheppard says:

    It seems a pity to me that Feral Haffajee…er…sorry, Ferial Haffajee, does snot simply make a statement such as, for example: “I hate the DA”, or “I believe utterly in the NDR”, so that we really have it clear about what she stands for, instead of ‘Shadow Dancin’ about.
    Because of days of the DA successes in and with the Western Cape, she, whenthe DA won the closest of margins, ought to have been screaming: “Great, Joies, the DA are coming! Boy oh boy folks, they are the only “blues” worth having”. But, she did not. And a strong – and sour taste – appears somehow, in all her writings wherein which the DA is either subject or object. Rather disappointing actually, towards a political group who claim non-racialism, the Rule of Law, Social Economic Justice, title deeds, (does she own property?), right to fair trial, evidence-based decision-making, inter alia magnifica. Disappointing!

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