Johannesburg councilors voted Thursday to oust Democratic Alliance mayor Mpho Phalatse for a second time, following a similar move late last year that was struck down by the high court.
At a council meeting, 140 councilors voted to remove Phalatse, while 129 supported her.
“I am overwhelmed, I feel sad for our residents. Feeling sad about the city. The city was in good hands and it is very sad that it ended like this,” Phalatse told reporters after the vote.
Johannesburg has been run by often tense coalitions since 2016, when the ANC lost control of the city.
The Johannesburg high court reinstated Phalatse in October after his first removal through a motion of no confidence on September 30, which Judge Raylene Keightley ruled was driven by “ulterior motives” because the council president had given notice. “unreasonable” 16 hours for the vote. .
In a statement on Thursday, the DA’s national spokesman, Cilliers Brink, singled out the Patriotic Alliance for its condemnation of Phalatse’s latest fate.
He said the smaller party seemed set to hand control of the city back to the ANC after refusing on Wednesday night to support the current multi-party coalition government unless it had access to the city’s finances “through control of the two most lucrative portfolios on the mayoral committee. : economic and infrastructure development”.
“Since the start of the current round of negotiations to avoid a vote of no confidence against Mayor Mpho Phalatse, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has made it clear that we will not hand over the hard-earned taxes paid by the people of Joburg to a party that aims to extract patronage,” Brink said.
Smaller parties have previously accused the DA of acting like a big brother and undermining their role not only in the Johannesburg coalition, but also in other metropolitan areas around the country where the ANC has also lost control.
