Mampara of the week: Dada Morero

“If you can’t beat them, join them,” they say. But for this Mampara it’s more a case of “if you can’t convince them, swear at them”. The outgoing mayor of Johannesburg had a difficult time accounting for his municipality’s failures when engaging with Soweto residents this week. A heated exchange with an elderly citizen got to the point where the mayor was exclaiming, “Don’t call me a criminal! I am not a criminal!” When others joined in in the verbal volley, with one shouting, “Akaboshwe!” (arrest him), the mayor completely lost his cool, blurting out, “You are talking s**t!” In a normal democracy, those words would have been taken as the Mampara’s long overdue letter of resignation.