The DA’s self-imposed tail-spin picked up speed this morning when it emerged that the Federal Council would have to decide whether Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba should serve out his term before vacating his seat at the end of November.
Mashaba, widely lauded for stewarding a difficult council marriage between the DA and the EFF after 2016’s local government elections, resigned two days ago after Zille was voted in as the new chair of the DA’s federal executive (fedex).
Tried as they did to persuade Mashaba otherwise, the businessman-turned-politician said he could no longer reconcile himself with a party that, as a morning station reported, “is anti his pro-poor approach”.
He apparently also said he finds it hard to carry on being associated with “a party that think race is irrelevant when dealing with poverty”.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane is said to support Mashaba staying on until the end of his tenure, but the fedex was apparently thinking of asking the Zille-spurning mayor to step down immediately.
Should that be the case, an interim mayor will be appointed to oversee council business until Mashaba is formally replaced.
Most important of all is the fact that the DA’s fractious coalition with the EFF is now hanging in the balance - and should Mashaba be shown the door before he’s due to leave, it could bring down Johannesburg’s council.
Compounding matters this morning as the DA’s top leaders headed into discussions over Mashaba’s immediate future, was the news that Maimane was considering handing in his resignation at today’s fedex meeting.
And despite past spats that the coalition parties may have had with one another, the EFF is wearing its heart on its sleeve, calling Mashaba “a champion of transformation”.
If the DA emerges from today’s meeting seemingly retreating back into white-led leadership, its hold over Johannesburg is almost certain to slip, possibly giving way to an ANC-EFF take-over of Jo’burg’s political landscape.
