ANC tragedy: Three Joburg mayors die in less than a year

Tragedy has struck the African National Congress (ANC) as three of its mayors in Johannesburg have died in the space of just 10 months.

In the latest tragedy, the former Joburg mayor Mpho Moerane passed away on Wednesday.

Family spokesperson Mike Maile made the announcement during a media briefing outside the Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg.

He was involved in an accident last Monday night when he was travelling from Alexandra to his home in Mondeor, south of Joburg.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his deep sadness at the passing of Moerane.

“We will miss his contribution to his political home, the African National Congress, and to the development of Johannesburg as one of our country’s and continent’s most important economic and cultural centres.”

Jolidee Matongo

Moerane served as mayor of the City of Johannesburg between 1 October 2021 and 22 November 2021 after the death of Jolidee Matongo.

Matongo was also killed in a crash on 18 September 2021 last year.

He was returning from a voter registration event in Soweto where he was campaigning for the ANC.

Matongo was elected on 10 August 2021 following the passing of Geoff Makhubo.

Geoff Makhubo

Makhubo passed away on 2 July 2021, a week after being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 complications.

After testing positive, Makhubo urged the public to do all it could to minimise the spread of the virus.

Makhubo took over as mayor of Johannesburg on 4 December 2019 after former Democratic Alliance (DA) member Herman Masha quit the position.

While Mashaba is still alive and well and running his political party Action SA, he resigned from the mayor’s post and from the DA on 27 November 2019 in protest against the election of former Western Cape premier Helen Zille as the party’s federal council chairperson.

The current mayor of the City of Johannesburg is DA member Mpho Phalatse.

Phalatse was elected as mayor on 22 November 2021 after she received 144 out of the 265 votes in the mayoral vote in council, defeating the ANC’s candidate, incumbent mayor Mpho Moerane, who received only 121 votes.