The removal of the mayor of the city of Johannesburg, Mpho Phalatse, last week has sparked an implicit public debate over the suitability of the newly elected young mayor, Thapelo Amad.
You have been asking questions for a long time. What constitutes mayoral leadership and what criteria do political parties use to determine a mayoral candidate during a vote of no confidence when coalition municipal governments fall apart?
While political parties have made progress in promoting descriptive representation of youth and women in mayoral leadership, the issue of substantive representation for mayors and serious concerns about governance instability in city governments are gaining momentum.
Mayors, as identifiable public figures, are being increasingly hollowed out by patronage politics. As Alex van den Heever points out. Highly experienced mayoral candidates are required to manage politically complex cities like Johannesburg, which has a huge budget of R77 billion. He suggests that Amad is probably the “weakest and most [most] unknown” mayor that the city has had due to his inexperience in political management.
This could seriously undermine strategic leadership decisions that are crucial for bureaucratic city management to change the city of Johannesburg. In fact, his mayoral election is seen as another bargaining deal between the minority parties, who are likely to manipulate the newly elected mayor into exercising patronage by allocating resources to their advantage, which has very little to do with leadership. competent. and governance history.
In fact, Johannesburg struggles with the many complex socio-economic problems commonly found in urban settings. The city has had more than six mayors in three years while juggling deteriorating infrastructure, recurring protests over service delivery in municipalities, rising crime levels, tensions between locals and migrants, historical unresolved electricity debts, unsatisfactory audit results, demonstrated weak financial liquidity in the city’s R1. .8 billion deficit in 2022 and an operating income of 7.1%.
African cities are gradually being pushed to adopt modernized forms of governance as growing urban socio-economic challenges demand transformative leadership and qualitative representation.
However, their political and governance arrangements differ ominously from Western urban local governments, which seek to deepen local leadership and representative democracies through directly elected mayors. They have legislatively insulated their municipal councils from the abrupt removal of mayors through motions of no confidence, which has given rise to relative stability and autonomy in their mayoral political governance and administrative systems. But stability and autonomy for mayors is something South African city governments strove to achieve even before the advent of hanging councils.
In South Africa, mayors have been at the epicenter of the entanglement with party leadership disputes, power struggles, inter-party factions, political-administrative conflicts, patronage and the subversion of professional values that tend to displace the political management functions and responsibilities of mayors. leadership at the town hall.
Coalition formations through the posts of political office holders, such as mayor, have become the decisive factor in gaining power in hung councils. Therefore, political parties rarely consider how mayors gain their public legitimacy as leaders who have influential power and authority over the city’s jurisdiction.
This has made the proverbial kingmaking process ambiguous under coalition municipal governments, particularly when councilors pass a vote of no confidence behind council chambers, where citizens cannot have a direct voice.
Phalatse’s alleged lack of leadership in the Soweto power protests was used to question his elitist leadership style and disengagement with poor communities, justifying his removal from office. Attempting to counter this narrative, his public statement listed his achievements during his tenure in office, which fell on deaf ears, resulting in a missed opportunity for broader public debate and consensus on how citizens can assess the performance of a mayor and retain him. she responsible.
Mayors can be judged as strong or weak in terms of their experience, skills, and competence. But your formal relationship with the board and your informal relationship with the public do matter. When mayors have executive powers and authority over the municipal budget, their strength can be judged through their ability to use these powers to influence the appointment of management, to manage your executive and management and to set the tone for your interaction with other directors.
The mayor is strategically located with council members, staff, and the public and therefore has the ability to bring the administrative and legislative wing together for better interaction and improved communication between council and the public.
Through social status and political position, the mayor is expected to promote the vision and agenda of the city by seeking support from the provincial and national government and attracting investment from the private sector.. Other mayors may be seen as strong and more hands-on activists due to the close relationships they can have with communities by being proactive and responsive in community conflicts, which can be good for the mayor’s public visibility or cause abrasive friction with the speaker. who is in charge of public participation and petitions.
Leadership in city governments has increasingly become an expansive activity, requiring leaders to engage with stakeholders from local businesses, communities, and other local public bodies with competing demands, to address issues of interest, whether or not they are directly within the scope of the local government service. responsibilities.
Local leaders are pressured by the complexity of urban politics, where boundaries are unclear and authority is dispersed among multiple actors. Furthermore, leading a multi-party government requires cohesive cooperation among various political parties, which can be met with resistance, tension, and conflict.
It is important to highlight that these leadership roles depend on the city’s rule book, bureaucratic politics, executive powers, and the performance of the authorities of the mayors of different municipalities in relation to the freedom and autonomy of the mayors.
Surely the public should have a say in what kind of figurehead they want in charge of their city to ensure that the role is assigned to a worthy candidate with the right competencies to exercise internal (institutional) and external public leadership.
The silencing of public opinion in the scrutiny of mayoral candidates, who are presented by political parties on opposition and minority benches, raises questions about the consultative process for appointing political office holders and the limitations of representative local democracy.
While the agenda to professionalize the recruitment, appointment and removal of local authority top managers is still incubating in the committee chambers of parliament, the election and removal of city mayors (including committee members of mayor) must also receive greater public attention, given the tumultuous coalitions that crumble before the end of his term.
Dr. Thina Nzo heads the local government program at the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI).
Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect official policy or the position of the mail and guardian.
