South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), lost control of Johannesburg, as city council picked an opposition woman on Monday as mayor of the country's largest city .
The ANC suffered a historic setback in the municipal elections in early November, falling for the first time below the 50% mark in a ballot.
Until then, Nelson Mandela's party had won every absolute majority vote since the country's first democratic elections in 1994.
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Mpho Phalatse, of the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, becomes the first black woman to lead Johannesburg mayoralty and the first woman since 1946. This is the fourth appointment as mayor of Johannesburg this year: one died of Covid-19, another was killed in a car accident. The outgoing mayor, Mpho Moerane, who had been in office since October, lost to Ms. Phalatse by 121 votes to 144.
Born in 2000 from the merger of three
"white"
parties
, the DA was the largest opposition party for almost 20 years.
Long seen as the party of the white middle class, it then attracted many black voters, before being overtaken by allegations of racism.
Mpho Phalatse will now have to convince her allies to continue working with her, something that the previous DA mayor failed to do, who had to step down after his coalition partners turned to the 'ANC.