Dan Plato voted in as new mayor of Cape Town

Dan Plato officially became executive mayor of Cape Town on Tuesday after he was voted in with 146 out of 208 votes. He has taken over from Patricia de Lille, who officially left office on October 31.

The runner-up was Xolani Sotashe‚ leader of the ANC in the council‚ who received 53 votes. There were 51 ANC members available to cast their vote in Tuesday’s council sitting. The ANC caucus sang loudly after the outcome of the vote was announced in Plato’s favour.

The former Western Cape MEC for community safety was inaugurated by city speaker Dirk Smit and received the mayoral chain. After receiving the chain‚ Plato said one of his priorities was to beef up policing in the city. He promised to focus on recruiting more members into the metro police and to apply pressure on national government to give Cape Town more police officers.

He welcomed the newly formed anti-gang unit and said he would canvass for them to remain active as a permanent part of the police force. “We cannot allow a situation where, in the rest of the country, there is one police officer for every 369 people‚ but in Cape Town there is only one police officer for every 560 people — and in some communities, like Nyanga‚ this number jumps to one police officer for every 628 residents‚” he said.

“If the national government does not urgently address this‚ we will take the legal route to force them to give our communities more police officers‚ because we are done asking nicely.”

He called on citizens to take care of infrastructure and to report their “neighbours” to his office if they damaged infrastructure, and said that one of his first acts as mayor would be to conduct a “listening tour" of communities in Cape Town.

Plato said the city would “maintain a pro-poor” budget‚ address the city’s apartheid-era spatial design, and provide housing for people closer to “where job opportunities are available”.

He also applauded citizens for their role in reducing water use during the water crisis. “We hope by next month to be in a position to further reduce our restriction levels and the accompanying tariffs.”

DA Western Cape leader Bonginkosi Madikizela welcomed Plato’s election‚ saying he had “proven his commitment to service delivery and his passion to keep the streets of Cape Town safe”.

Madikizela added that Plato had “always been above petty politics and will bring much-needed stability‚ unity and mature leadership to the city‚ which has been lacking over the past number of months.”