The ANC's Lebogang Maile, Panyaza Lesufi and secretary-general Ace Magashule seated in the gallery ahead of a vote in council to elect a new mayor for Johannesburg.
Image: Sowetan/Veli Nhlapo
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The ANC's Geoff Makhubo is the new mayor of Johannesburg.

Makhubo won the vote on Wednesday by a comfortable margin.

The ANC's nominee for the position - which was formerly held by Herman Mashaba of the DA, whose last day was on November 27 - received 137 of the votes cast. His closest challenger was the DA's Funzela Ngobeni, with 101 votes. The EFF's Musa Novela received 30 votes.

The victory comes a week after a council meeting where the new mayor was expected to be elected was delayed by council speaker Vasco DA Gama to get clarity over the procedure to be followed in electing the new number one resident.

Mashaba resigned from his job last month in protest of the election of Helen Zille as the DA federal council chair.

Makhubu's return signals the ANC reclaiming the country's economic hub after it was toppled by a DA-led coalition, supported by the EFF, following the local government election in 2016.

But that coalition government has collapsed after the EFF fell out of favour with the DA. 

Drawn out negotiations between the IFP and the ANC led to the party ditching the DA and its relationship in five other municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.

The Johannesburg result also means the DA is at risk of losing its mayorship of the city of Tshwane. 

Its mayor, Stevens Makgalapa, is under siege from both opposition parties and from within his party following a leaked alleged "sex recording". 

Both the EFF and ANC has filed motions to have him removed while his party, the DA, is probing him over the same recording. 

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