PHUTI MOSOMANE
KABELO Gwamanda, a councillor for the Al-Jama-Ah party, has been elected as the Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg.
Gwamanda secured an overwhelming 139 votes, defeating ActionSA Gauteng Chairperson Funzi Ngobeni and former mayor Mpho Phalatse.
Ngobeni was nominated by councillor Franco De Lange from the VF Plus and seconded by councillor Harris from the ACDP, but only received 59 votes.
Phalatse received 68 votes.
Gwamanda was supported by the EFF and the ANC coalition alliance.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) managed the elections, with a total of 266 votes cast.
ActionSA, who had been advocating for Ngobeni’s candidacy, formed a voting bloc with the IFP, FF Plus, ACDP, and UIM parties. However, they argued that only the Democratic Alliance (DA) possessed enough seats to give Ngobeni’s candidacy a majority and keep the ANC and EFF out of power in Johannesburg.
The Patriotic Alliance (PA) refused to support the DA’s candidate, meaning that even with the support of all former ActionSA-DA coalition partners, Johannesburg would still fall to the ANC/EFF coalition.
This is a developing story.
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