Johannesburg (South Africa)

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    Johannesburg, Where Mayors Last Just Months, or Even Only Weeks

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    South Africa’s largest city is now on its sixth different mayor in 22 months. While politicians argue over power, residents struggle with dry taps, heaps of garbage and dilapidated buildings.NOW HIRING: A mayor of Johannesburg.DUTIES: Managing fickle governing partners. Dodging insults from opposition parties. And cleaning up piles of garbage.LENGTH OF TERM: Likely very short.This was once a city of dreamers, a gold town that seduced prospectors from all over hoping to strike it rich. Lately, though, Johannesburg has been something of a political punchline, a metropolis where many residents’ spirits are as dark as the streetlights.This month, after days of brinkmanship and arm twisting, the city inaugurated its sixth different mayor in 22 months: Kabelo Gwamanda, a first-term city councilor from a political party that got just 1 percent of the vote in the last municipal election.His ascent came after he won the majority of the votes of the city’s 270 elected council members. And it capped the latest chapter in a political soap opera where mayoral terms are measured in weeks and months, and where the inability of council members to stick with a leader has resulted in a municipal mess, with Johannesburg residents the biggest losers.While political leaders bicker over power and cliques, exasperated residents often struggle through days without electricity and water, dodge cratered roads and fret about dilapidated buildings.Kabelo Gwamanda, center, celebrating after being elected mayor of Johannesburg, on May 5.Joao Silva/The New York TimesFrom a leather sectional in the safety of her $300-a-month, two-bedroom unit in the Elangeni Gardens residential complex, Pretty Mhlophe counts her blessings but also cringes at what city leaders have let fester.Elangeni Gardens, developed in a public-private partnership in 2002 to address the city’s affordable housing shortage, boasts a patch of blue-and-green artificial turf, a jungle gym and a basketball court where children play freely. But the drab, boxy building across the street, once an apartheid government checkpoint for Black workers, is dripping with trash. It is so overcrowded with squatters that some have erected tin shacks in the back lot.“Inside the complex it’s a home, outside the complex it’s scary,” Ms. Mhlophe, 42, said.Many South Africans fear that what is unfolding in Johannesburg, official population of 5.6 million, could be a bad sign of what’s to come after national elections next year.Uncollected trash in Johannesburg. While the city’s political leaders bicker over power and cliques, exasperated residents often struggle through days without electricity and water, dodge cratered roads and fret about dilapidated buildings. Joao Silva/The New York TimesWhen no party earns more than half of the vote in an election in South Africa, parties seek to get above that 50 percent threshold by forming coalitions, which allow them to control the council and choose a mayor. In Johannesburg over the past two years, parties in ruling coalitions have on multiple occasions fallen out with each other, leading to the creation of new alliances that install a new mayor.“This is childish,” Junior Manyama, a disgruntled member of the city’s — and country’s — largest political party, the African National Congress, said as he smoked a cigarette in his car outside of City Hall earlier this month, waiting for council members to elect a new mayor.Mr. Manyama, 31, was furious that his party, with 91 seats on the council, agreed to a power-sharing arrangement that allowed someone from a party that holds just three seats to lead South Africa’s largest city.“We can’t trust these people anymore,” he said, referring to political leaders.For about two decades after the first democratic elections in 1994, South Africans did not have to worry about these on-again, off-again political romances because the A.N.C. dominated at the ballot box, nationally and locally. But the party has recently lost hold of many major municipalities.The interior of a building in Johannesburg that has been taken over by squatters.Joao Silva/The New York TimesSome analysts think it may slip below 50 percent in a national election for the first time next year, meaning the country’s president and other top leaders will have to be selected through one of these shaky coalition arrangements.“It’s the worst case scenario playing out right now,” Michael Beaumont, the national chairman of ActionSA, the third largest party in Johannesburg, said outside the council chamber before the most recent mayoral vote. “I think the A.N.C. is going to actively campaign on the ticket of saying, ‘Better the devil you know than this kind of coalition mess.’”Since its birth as a muddy mining camp that turned into a booming gold town, Johannesburg has struggled to serve all its residents. Home to one in 10 South Africans, the city is still battling to overcome apartheid’s impact, which led to urban flight and created vastly disparate worlds crammed into 635 sprawling square miles.The highway connecting the northern suburbs to the southern townships winds past upscale malls and leafy communities where Spanish tiled roofs poke above high security walls. It passes over abandoned mine dumps yellow with gold dust, then past factories with darkened windows, before arriving in Soweto, where closely packed homes range from neglected workers’ hostels to sturdy bungalows with ornate pillars guarding the entrances.Playing football at the Elangeni Gardens apartment complex in Johannesburg.Joao Silva/The New York TimesNearly half the city’s population lives beneath the poverty line. And the last time Johannesburg saw a major infrastructure boom was before the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with new bus lanes and paved sidewalks. By now, even those have deteriorated.“A world-class African city,” reads the tagline on the municipal logo, and indeed Joburg — as it’s commonly called — can inspire with its energy.Live music and festivals are aplenty. Fine-dining restaurants and roadside vendors serve up cuisines from around the globe. Theater and art exhibits can be part of the daily itinerary.Not far from the Elangeni Gardens, trendy, gentrified markets speak to a vibrant city that many young people find attractive.But those amenities can be of little consolation for Ms. Mhlophe and her neighbors, who have repeatedly called the police to report the thieves who have targeted their visitors and their cars, and the drug dealers loitering on the corner. Once, a woman was thrown from a fourth-floor window.Pretty Mhlope, right, in her home at Elangeni Gardens.Joao Silva/The New York TimesThey have asked city housing officials to clean up the neighboring building, where trash sags on the second-floor eaves, and where on a recent afternoon a street vendor balancing a crate of oranges on her head had to skirt around a three-foot-tall trash heap to get into the building.“We as the government have to provide services that are at least worth paying for,” Mr. Gwamanda, 38, said during his inauguration speech, bowed over a podium speaking softly.He exchanged smiles and hugs and posed for pictures with fellow council members, including Dada Morero, who served 26 days as mayor last year.“Let us collaborate in bringing back the heartbeat of the city of Johannesburg,” Mr. Gwamanda said.He didn’t say how long that would take or whether he would be the mayor when it happens.An abandoned public bathhouse.Joao Silva/The New York Times More

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      South Africa’s Embattled Deputy President Resigns

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      Despite scandal and controversy, David Mabuza remained in office for five years, only leaving once he had lost power within the governing African National Congress party.JOHANNESBURG — David Mabuza, the deputy president of South Africa whose political rise became emblematic of the scandals and leadership crises that have eroded the credibility of the governing African National Congress party, has resigned. Mr. Mabuza was sworn in as deputy president in 2019. Despite longtime accusations of financial misdeeds against Mr. Mabuza, his enduring presence alongside Mr. Ramaphosa cast doubt on the president’s ability to root out corruption and restore the reputation of the governing party.In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Ramaphosa thanked Mr. Mabuza for his “exceptional service to the country over the last five years.” Mr. Ramaphosa is set to reshuffle his cabinet soon, moving around lawmakers to reflect shifts within the A.N.C. He will also appoint a minister of electricity, a new position announced last month to steer the country out of a “state of disaster” caused by prolonged, daily power outages.Mr. Mabuza rose from being a little-known union leader in a rural province to second in command of the A.N.C. As deputy president, he focused on land reform and the plight of military veterans demanding compensation, but he largely remained a shadowy figure among many voters.His long medical absences and trips to Russia for treatment raised questions among South Africans. In November, just weeks before the A.N.C. held its crucial party conference, Mr. Mabuza’s motorcade was involved in a deadly crash that left one of his security guards dead.Despite being Mr. Ramaphosa’s No. 2, Mr. Mabuza’s political influence had waned in recent years. Once nicknamed “the Cat” for his stealth political machinations, Mr. Mabuza failed to win a second term as the party’s deputy president at the A.N.C.’s conference last December, which meant he would have lost his national office. He was also left out of the party’s 80-person national executive committee.With the writing on the wall, Mr. Mabuza told mourners during a private funeral service last month that he would soon leave office. Despite his election loss, his announcement seemed to catch the president off guard, according to local media reports. He is likely to be replaced by Paul Mashatile, an ambitious Johannesburg politician who beat out Mr. Mabuza as deputy president of the party.A former mathematics teacher and school principal, Mr. Mabuza used his background in teachers’ unions and education activism to bolster his political career. After South Africa transitioned from apartheid to democracy, he rose rapidly, becoming A.N.C. chairman in 2007 and premier of Mpumalanga, a small province in the east of the country.A 2018 investigation by The New York Times found that Mr. Mabuza and his allies had siphoned money from Mpumalanga province’s education system. Some schools were built as an easy way to funnel money, while many more classrooms crumbled. His critics say the money was used to helped build a powerful political machine with Mr. Mabuza at the helm. Mpumalanga is largely rural and impoverished, yet Mr. Mabuza became wealthy during his time as premier. Mr. Mabuza only took office in 2019 once the A.N.C.’s internal disciplinary committee cleared him of any allegations, his office said. A recent sweeping judicial commission of inquiry into corruption also “started and finished without Mabuza’s name being mentioned,” Matshepo Seedat, Mr. Mabuza’s spokeswoman, said. He was never criminally charged.Outside of provincial politics, he has been unable to sustain power and influence. His own province eventually snubbed him: Mpumalanga backed another candidate at the December conference.“I am no kingmaker,” Mr. Mabuza said in response to The Times’s 2018 investigation, rejecting the report. “I abhor corruption. Any fiction to the contrary or ‘fake news’ is laughable.” More

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      South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa Wins a Crucial A.N.C. Battle

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      President Cyril Ramaphosa emerged well-placed to win a second term as the head of the country’s governing party, although there is much haggling and horse-trading to come.JOHANNESBURG — President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, whose presidency has been upended by claims that he tried to cover up the theft of a huge sum of cash at his farm, emerged well-placed to win a second term as leader of the governing African National Congress, and president of the country, after nominations by his party’s rank and file were released on Tuesday.The A.N.C. revealed that 3,543 branches across the country had submitted nominations for leadership positions that will be contested during a national party conference that begins on Dec. 16 in Johannesburg.At the gathering, held every five years, members choose the A.N.C.’s top officials, including their president, who typically serves as the country’s president. National elections are set for 2024, and the A.N.C. has won an outright majority of votes in every national contest since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.Mr. Ramaphosa won nominations from 2,037 branches, more than double that of his closest challenger, Zweli Mkhize, who served as health minister under the president. But analysts cautioned not to make too much of the results because the contest could change drastically by the time the conference begins.Delegates, who vote by secret ballot, are under no obligation to stick with the nominations of their branches. A lot of horse-trading and haggling over votes occur between the time that nominations are released and when delegates step to the ballot box, analysts said.Dr. Mkhize said in an interview after the nominations were announced that he was still confident he would prevail next month. He said he had heard from supporters throughout the country who planned to vote for him at conference but said they did not nominate him in their branches because they feared repercussions from the party’s current leadership.“We expected this pattern,” he said. “That’s why it’s important for us to look forward to a secret ballot. Our sense at the moment is that we’ve still got very good support.”Among the names nominated for the governing party’s leadership, known as the “top six,” were several of Mr. Ramaphosa’s allies, a reflection of his political strength and the continued role of factional politics and bitter infighting, analysts said.The nominations also show a party that is falling short of its own so-called renewal agenda, said Hlengiwe Ndlovu, a senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand. Only two women have been nominated for a leadership position, and they will be competing for the same spot. Younger leaders also struggled to gain traction.“How do you renew without centering women and the youth?” Dr. Ndlovu said.Jacob Zuma, the former president who has tried to re-enter the political scene after serving a 15-month sentence for failing to cooperate with a corruption inquiry, did not secure enough nominations to run for the national chairman of the A.N.C. He is still in legal jeopardy. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who was vying to become the party’s first female president, also did not get enough nominations to automatically qualify for the ballot.Members can still enter the contest if they get nominations from 25 percent of delegates at the conference.The nominations are an early positive sign for Mr. Ramaphosa, who has been under intense scrutiny since a former intelligence chief and political rival filed a police complaint claiming that in February 2020, $4 million to $8 million in U.S. currency stashed in furniture had been stolen from Mr. Ramaphosa’s game farm, Phala Phala Wildlife.The former spy chief, Arthur Fraser, laid out scandalous accusations, including that Mr. Ramaphosa had never reported the theft to the police, instead relying on an off-the-books investigation by the head of the presidential protection unit to look into the theft.The president’s opponents within his own party have called on him to step down, accusing him of trying to cover up the theft to shield himself from accusations of money laundering and tax fraud associated with having that much foreign currency hidden at his farm.A panel appointed by Parliament is scheduled to reach a decision by the end of this month on whether Mr. Ramaphosa should face an impeachment inquiry. Since transitioning to a democracy, South Africa has never had a president face impeachment. The national prosecutor’s office and the public protector, an anticorruption watchdog, have also begun their own investigations.Mr. Ramaphosa, who has denied any wrongdoing, has argued that the investigative process must play out.During a recent meeting of A.N.C. executives, he offered a few more details about the theft. He said that about $500,000 in proceeds from the sale of game had been stolen and he named the businessman who he said was the buyer, according to South African news articles.The president’s statement did little to quell the venom he faced, local news outlets reported, saying that a leaked draft of a report by the A.N.C.’s integrity commission suggested that the scandal had brought disrepute to the party.The tense leadership battle within the A.N.C., Africa’s oldest liberation movement — and the scrutiny Mr. Ramaphosa faces over the theft — comes as the party faces a crossroads. Much of the country has become fed up with the constant drumbeat of corruption accusations against party officials. Entrenched poverty and poor delivery of services like electricity and water have caused daily hardships for many. This has all led the party’s electoral support to plummet.During last year’s local government elections, the A.N.C. failed to garner at least 50 percent of the national vote for the first time since the country’s transition from apartheid to democratic rule. Many analysts predict that the party will fall short of 50 percent during the next national elections, meaning that it will have to form a coalition with other parties to remain in power.The leadership that emerges out of next month’s A.N.C. conference “will be quite critical as a turning point of the demise of the A.N.C.,” said Mmamoloko Kubayi, a member of the party’s executive committee and a supporter of Mr. Ramaphosa. “Society will see whether the A.N.C. is serious about turning around, whether the A.N.C. is serious about showing that it has listened.”For much of his four years in power Mr. Ramaphosa had appeared to be coasting toward winning a second term. But the scandal, called Farmgate by news outlets, may threaten that.He came to power as A.N.C. leader in 2017 as an anticorruption crusader, later replacing Mr. Zuma, whose nine years in office were marred by numerous accusations that he had allowed people close to him to enrich themselves by robbing state coffers.In the wake of Mr. Zuma’s tenure, Mr. Ramaphosa championed a contentious A.N.C. rule that required party officials to be suspended from their positions if they were criminally charged in a court of law.Now, Mr. Ramaphosa could find himself facing that same rule.Lynsey Chutel More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Elon Musk Buys Twitter

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      Plus a lockdown looms over Beijing and the U.S. flexes in Ukraine.Good morning. Elon Musk buys Twitter, Beijing vibrates with fears of a lockdown, the U.S. reasserts itself in Ukraine.Elon Musk, owner of Twitter?Pool photo by Patrick PleulElon Musk buys TwitterElon Musk, the renegade billionaire, struck a deal to buy the social media company for roughly $44 billion after submitting an unsolicited bid earlier this month. The company agreed to $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the stock price when it was revealed that Musk had become the company’s biggest shareholder.It would be the largest deal to take a company private — something Musk has said he will do with Twitter — in at least two decades. Follow live updates here.What happens next is anyone’s guess: Musk is an erratic poster who often uses his account to take potshots at perceived enemies. One big question: Would Musk reinstate Donald Trump’s account?Musk has not commented publicly on the Trump ban, but he has frequently expressed his concern that the platform limits free speech and over-moderates comments. In a statement, Musk said “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square.”Reaction: Twitter’s employees say they have been largely in the dark about the takeover. Twitter’s share price rose throughout the day on Monday as a deal appeared increasingly likely: After the acquisition was announced, it closed up 5.7 percent at $51.70 per share.Families in Beijing rushed to stock up on food on yesterday.Stella Qiu/ReutersWill Beijing lock down next?Chinese authorities ordered mass testing amid fears of a coronavirus outbreak. The city government announced that 70 cases had been found since Friday, nearly two-thirds of those in the district of Chaoyang, which ordered all 3.5 million residents to take three P.C.R. tests over the next five days.Fears of a lockdown prompted a rush of panic buying, and supermarkets stayed open late to meet demand. In other Chinese megacities, mass testing in response to initial coronavirus cases has sometimes preceded more stringent lockdowns.The hardships endured by Shanghai residents loom large over the capital city, and China’s economy is already hurting as prolonged lockdowns interrupt global supply chains. In response to these fears, global stocks fell on Monday.Read More on Elon Musk’s Bid to Buy TwitterA Digital Citizen Kane: The mercurial billionaire wants to recast Twitter in his image, in echoes of the 19th-century newspaper barons.Elusive Politics: Mr. Musk is often described as a libertarian, but he has not shrunk from government help when it has been good for business.A Problem for Trump: Mr. Musk’s plan for a Twitter takeover adds to the challenges facing the former president’s nascent Truth Social network.Background: The central government has leaned heavily on lockdowns despite their high social and economic costs, in pursuit of the Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s “zero Covid” strategy.Analysis: With pandemic lockdowns, China’s government has begun meddling with free enterprise in a way it hasn’t in years, our columnist writes. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine’s pressure on Western governments is paying off.David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesThe U.S. looks to weaken RussiaPresident Biden nominated Bridget Brink, the current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, as ambassador to Ukraine on Monday. The U.S. also announced it would reopen its embassy in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, after Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, made a risky, secret visit by train to the city.“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kind of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said.The assertion by the top U.S. defense officials that America wants to degrade the Russian war machine reflected an increasingly emboldened approach from the Biden administration.In Ukraine, the war continues to rage, and tens of thousands are without power in the country’s east. Russia renewed its attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure, striking at least five railroad stations in the west with missiles. The country’s railroad director said there were casualties, without elaborating.Loss: A mother found a “new level of happiness” when her daughter was born three months ago. A missile strike in Odesa killed them both.Profile: President Volodymyr Zelensky has managed to unite Ukraine’s fractious politics against Russia.State of the war:Explosions hit Transnistria, a Russian-allied region of Moldova, amid fears of a new front in the war.Russian officials are investigating the cause of fires that tore through oil depots in a strategic city near the Ukrainian border.U.S. defense contractors have been scouring Eastern European weapons factories to find munitions compatible with Ukraine’s arsenal of Soviet-era military equipment.THE LATEST NEWSThe French ElectionPresident Emmanuel Macron celebrates his victory.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesPresident Emmanuel Macron won re-election with a 17-point margin over Marine Le Pen, who conceded her defeat. Turnout was the lowest in two decades.Macron is expected to put in effect several policies to address an issue that spurred over 40 percent of voters to vote for Le Pen: an erosion in purchasing power and living standards.Macron’s victory is a blow to right-wing populism in Europe, like the kind championed by President Viktor Orban of Hungary. Slovenia’s Trump-admiring prime minister, Janez Jansa, appears to have lost his bid for re-election.World NewsDisplaced people in Darfur often live in shelters, like these in El Geneina.Faiz Abubakar Muhamed for The New York TimesHundreds of Arab militia fighters attacked a village in the Darfur region, killing at least 150 people, as Sudan’s security and political crisis deepened.Four people were fatally stabbed in London early Monday morning. The police have arrested a suspect.Osman Kavala, a prominent Turkish critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.Rights groups have denounced the trial, related to the country’s 2013 protests.U.S. NewsA New York judge held Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents related to an inquiry by the state attorney general. He will be fined $10,000 per day until he does so.A Texas court halted the execution of Melissa Lucio, a Hispanic mother who was convicted of killing her 2-year-old, after new evidence emerged.A climate activist in the U.S. died after lighting himself on fire in front of the country’s Supreme Court on Friday.A Morning Read“I wanted to be fashionable. I just decided to go for it,” said Ayaka Kizu, who got her first tattoo at 19.Haruka Sakaguchi for The New York TimesTattoos have long been taboo in Japan. Since 2014, though, the number of Japanese adults with tattoos has nearly doubled, as social media and celebrity culture prompt more young people to seek out elaborate ink. One catch: They’re choosing discreet places, so they can hide their body art at work.ARTS AND IDEASAn African art collection under threatThe Johannesburg Art Gallery, which houses one of the largest art collections in Africa, has fallen into disrepair. The pandemic only worsened the neglect.Now, the Picasso, Rembrandt and Monets are all packed away in a basement, hidden from the damp. After a particularly wet summer, the gallery’s leaking roof became a hazard to the art. Its bustling but neglected neighborhood creates other vulnerabilities: Thieves long ago stole its copper finishings.“In the same way it’s a failure of the City of Jo’burg to look after the gallery, it’s also a failure of the city of Jo’burg to look after the area around the gallery,” Brian McKechnie, an architect who specializes in heritage buildings, said.Its fate is uncertain: In a recent statement, the city said that it was clear “stopping the leaks alone would not be sufficient to address the future prospects of the institution.” The collection could move, but officials are not sure what to do about the historic building.In the rooms that are still open, curators have assembled exhibitions of Wycliffe Mundopa, who paints large canvasses celebrating the women of Zimbabwe, and the African masters — vibrant reminders of what the Johannesburg Art Gallery could still be. —Lynsey ChutelPLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookBobbi Lin for The New York TimesFeta and olive add brine to this satisfying Greek salad with chicken and cucumbers.What to WatchThe documentary “Navalny” is a glowing profile of the imprisoned Russian opposition leader.World Through a LensTake a long walk in a rural corner of Japan.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Group of sea otters (four letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. The Economist spoke with Sam Ezersky about editing The Times’s digital puzzles and facing down Spelling Bee fanatics.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the dangers of traffic stops in the U.S.Lynsey Chutel wrote today’s Arts & Ideas. You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More