The mayor of South Africa’s largest city found himself in an awkward position on Thursday, when he had to choose between defending his dignity or being the bigger man and ignoring an insult from a member of the audience he was addressing.
Dada Morero, Johannesburg’s executive mayor, was addressing residents in Tshepisong over service-delivery problems when an elderly member of the audience called him a criminal.
Morero objected. Strongly.
“Don’t call me a criminal. Don’t call me a criminal. I’m not a criminal,” he said.
Then the mayor’s response strayed from what one would expect during normal municipal stakeholder engagement when he repeated, three times:
“You are talking sh*t”
Morero was not finished. “If you do not respect us, do not expect us to respect you,” he told the resident. “We have that capacity to disrespect you too.”
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Hours later, Morero issued an apology. “Emotions ran high between one of the participants and me,” he said in a video addressed to Johannesburg residents. “I would like to profusely and unconditionally apologise for my utterances. It should not have been done in that fashion, and I do take full responsibility.”
Then his own party stepped in. The ANC’s Greater Johannesburg region said Morero’s apology was welcome, but it did not attempt to explain away his conduct.
Instead, the ANC used a phrase particularly loaded in the vocabulary of the governing party. It called the conduct “fundamentally un-ANC”.
“The ANC unequivocally distances itself from conduct that is disrespectful, insulting or demeaning towards an elderly person,” the statement said.
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The party also reminded Morero where power is supposed to flow from. “Public representatives are servants of the people,” it said.
Residents, the ANC continued, had the right to “raise grievances, express frustration and hold leaders accountable”. Leaders, meanwhile, were expected to show “discipline, patience and humility”.
The party did not entirely take the resident’s side. It condemned what it called the “abuse of freedom of expression” to make “reckless, unfounded and defamatory allegations” against Morero, including calling him a criminal.
So the ANC’s verdict was roughly this: the resident should not have called the mayor a criminal. The mayor should not have responded as though the meeting had become a street argument.
Morero said he later spoke to the resident and that his apology was accepted. “I do apologise for the conduct of that meeting,” he said.
The ANC called the apology an “important step towards accountability”, while warning that the episode must not “become a pattern of conduct”.
- The mayor of South Africa’s largest city found himself in an awkward position on Thursday, when he had to choose between defending his dignity or being the bigger man and ignoring an insult from a member of the audience he was addressing.
- Dada Morero, Johannesburg’s executive mayor, was addressing residents in Tshepisong over service-delivery problems when an elderly member of the audience called him a criminal.
- Morero objected.
- Strongly.
- “Don’t call me a criminal.
