Johannesburg will have a new mayor by Friday, and he is likely to be the current Finance MMC, Dada Morero. This follows the resignation of Al Jama-ah mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, who jumped before he was pushed, as Nonkululeko Njilo reported here.
Morero is a seasoned politician and a safe pair of hands. But, it is the party’s coalition choice that will cook its goose and likely deepen its losses in the 2026 local government elections.
On Tuesday 13 August, the ANC Johannesburg regional office said the city will be governed by a broad coalition representing 192 seats of the 270-seat council.
The ANC has 90 seats, and its government of local unity will include the EFF (29 seats), possibly Action SA (44), the Patriotic Alliance (8), IFP (7) and a host of minor parties, including Al Jama-ah. Gwamanda is hoping for a mayoral committee position in return for stepping down.
The coalition will exclude the DA, FF+, and ACDP, the ANC’s deputy regional secretary for Johannesburg, Loyiso Masuku, said.
By choosing such a broad-church coalition, the ANC says it is following the instructions from its headquarters to create a united government that will be able to fix the city and win back its support.
But this coalition will do the opposite. Since 2021, the ANC and EFF have been the primary partners holding power in the city, along with minority parties. The character of their administration has been deeply rooted in patronage politics, and it has seen services hit the wall.
This patronage model means that the annual R20-billion contractor budgets, along with positions on the boards and executive committees of entities like City Power, Johannesburg Water, and Johannesburg Roads Agency, are the bounty of holding government. These positions are dished out among cadres of the current coalition partners.
As Daily Maverick has reported here, the result is a city poised to fail.
Read more: Joburg is too big to fail. It’s time to give it back to its people
By expanding its existing coalition and including additional smaller parties, the ANC will expand the patronage net further into the service’s budget, which is already throttled by high staff, contractor and tender costs. This is because it will have to give positions in the mayoral committee (the political engine room of the city) and the service entities to a much more comprehensive range of minor parties.
For example, the City Power and Johannesburg Water boards are so stacked with cadres from across the existing coalition that there isn’t space for a single engineer on them. So, services worsen and more voters are alienated from the ANC and its partners.
The ANC would better serve the city in a smaller coalition of larger parties with fewer patronage demands and more accountability to the citizens who elected them. Minor parties like Al Jama-ah, many of which are in Johannesburg, are run by one-person political entrepreneurs and are primarily populist and extractive.
The ANC lost the 2024 election in Gauteng and in the metro’s three cities, where its traditional voters either stayed away or turned to newcomers. The party’s history of resistance is written in Johannesburg – it’s where Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu had their eponymous law offices; where the Defiance Campaign was launched, and where the ANC’s armed wing uMkhonto weSizwe struck at apartheid’s structures.
It is also where its endgame can be written.
By refusing to share power in Gauteng (see this report) and choosing a coalition in Johannesburg, the party is writing its epitaph in 2026 when it must contest an election whose trajectory was shaped in the May 2024 general election. DM
Daily Maverick
www.dailymaverick.co.za
