A provincial court has nullified an effort by South Africa’s ruling party to oust an opposition mayor from Johannesburg, the country’s largest city and the hub of its economy.
The Gauteng High Court found that the removal of Mayo Mpho Phalatse, who is a member of the opposition Democratic Alliance, was unconstitutional and invalid, and directed that she be restored to office.
As Breitbart News noted last month, the African National Congress (ANC), which controls the national government, coordinated with several smaller parties to oust the coalition that had been elected to govern Johannesburg in the municipal vote last year.
That, in turn, raised the prospect that one of those parties, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of firebrand Julius Malema, could govern the country in a coalition with the ANC after the 2024 elections. Malema recently told followers to “kill” for the “revolution.”
Voters had chosen the DA and other opposition parties to lead Johannesburg after decades of decline in which ANC government led to crime, poverty, and crumbling infrastructure. Over the last 15 years, the city has gone from a gleaming, optimistic financial hub to a gloomy, overgrown scene of urban collapse in which the electricity is often shut down for hours and running water is unreliable.
The Daily Maverick reported that Judge Raylene Keightley gave the city 11 days in which to appeal the ruling or comply with it.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.