An Indirect mayoral election occurred on 12 February 2019 in the

Tshwane The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (; ; ), also known as the City of Tshwane (), is the metropolitan municipality that forms the local government of northern Gauteng in South Africa. The metropolitan area is centred on the city of Pre ...

City Council to determine the successor of Solly Msimanga as Mayor of Tshwane. Msimanga announced in January 2019 that he would resign as mayor, therefore creating a vacancy in the position. No party holds an absolute majority in the city council. The Democratic Alliance and other smaller parties in the city council, with the support of the

Economic Freedom Fighters The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is a South African communist and black nationalist political party. It was founded by expelled former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema, and his allies, on 26 July 20 ...

, formed a coalition to govern the municipality after the 2016 municipal elections. The Economic Freedom Fighters and opposition

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

abstained from the vote, therefore allowing Mokgalapa to be elected as mayor unopposed on 12 February 2019. Mokgalapa was voted out as mayor on 5 December 2019, but his removal was later suspended. He resigned on 26 February 2020.

Background

On 18 January 2019, incumbent Mayor of Tshwane and Democratic Alliance Gauteng Premier candidate, Solly Msimanga, announced that he would resign as mayor in February 2019 in order to focus on his premiership campaign to unseat incumbent Premier of Gauteng,

David Makhura Manemolla David Makhura (born 22 February 1968) is a South African politician who served as the sixth Premier of Gauteng from May 2014 to October 2022. Since his resignation from that office, he has worked as head of political education for his ...

. Msimanga was elected mayor after the 2016 municipal elections. He became the first mayor from the Democratic Alliance, ending the many years of

rule in the municipality. Msimanga had survived many motions of no confidence during his tenure as mayor. The motions were tabled by the

and the

. On 31 January 2019, Solly Msimanga announced that he would effectively resign on 11 February.

Candidates

Democratic Alliance

The following people had been shortlisted by the Democratic Alliance as possible candidates. *Katlego Mathebe, Speaker of the Tshwane City Council *Mare-Lise Fourie, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Finance *

Stevens Mokgalapa Stevens Mokgalapa (born 9 April 1977) is a South African politician who served as the Mayor of Tshwane from 2019 to 2020. A former member of the Democratic Alliance (DA), he served as a Member of the National Assembly from 2009 to 2019. Within ...

, Member of Parliament *Randall Williams, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Economic Development and Spatial Planning On 3 February 2019, the party announced that it had selected

to be the party's mayoral candidate.

Result

As the Economic Freedom Fighters and opposition African National Congress did not field any candidates of their own and chose to abstain from the mayoral vote. The lack of any other candidates worked in Mokgalapa's favour and he was subsequently elected unopposed.Stevens Mokgalapa elected new Tshwane mayor
Retrieved on 12 February 2019.

References

{{Reflist 2019 elections in South Africa