Parks Tau
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Councillor Mpho Franklyn Parks Tau |
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| 2nd Mayor of Johannesburg | |
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In office 26 May 2011 – 22 August 2016 |
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| Preceded by | Amos Masondo |
| Succeeded by | Herman Mashaba |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1970 (age 46–47) Orlando, Soweto |
| Nationality | South African |
| Political party | African National Congress |
| Spouse(s) | Pilisiwe Twala-Tau |
| Children | Four |
| Profession | Councillor |
Mpho Franklyn Parks Tau (born 1970) was the mayor of the city of Johannesburg, South Africa from 2011-2016. He is a member of the African National Congress, and was the second democratically elected mayor, after Amos Masondo, of the Unified City of Johannesburg. He lost the mayoralty to the DA's Herman Mashaba in a historic defeat on the 22 of August 2016.
Born in Orlando West, a neighbourhood of Soweto, on 6 June 1970, Tau and his siblings grew up at the heart of the struggle against apartheid. Soweto is a densely populated urban area of predominantly black South Africans located on the southern perimeter of what was once Johannesburg's city boundary. Officially a part of the city since 1999, Soweto was the site of many altercations between police and anti-apartheid demonstrators, including the Soweto Uprising, which began on June 16, 1976, after apartheid police fired on demonstrating black students. Tau entered his teenage years at the height of the apartheid unrest and liberation struggle. At the age of fourteen, he joined the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), and became engaged in student activism for the first time. In the 1980s, he was detained several times during national states of emergency—periods of strict restrictions on anti-apartheid activities—which were declared by the apartheid government of the time that was determined to regain control over the population. Tau was later elected president of the Student Representative Council at Pace Commercial College. There he met college vice president Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali, who encouraged him and other PACE students to voice their political beliefs. In 1989, at the age of 19, Tau was elected president of the Soweto Youth Congress, and later he became a leading member of its subsequent incarnation, the African National Congress Youth League.
"The liberation struggle and a quest for social justice influenced my decision to join politics making my transition from struggle activism to politics seamless”, Tau says.
After apartheid came to an end in 1994 and South Africa's liberation party, the Africa National Congress (ANC), took power, Tau continued to take on roles enabling him to help build a united and equitable South Africa. He was 24 years old when he was elected regional secretary of the ANC in Johannesburg and in 1996, he went on to serve on the Southern Metropolitan Local Council's Urban Development Committee. In 2000, following the first democratic elections to take place at city level, Tau was appointed as a Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) of Johannesburg, overseeing the portfolios of Developmental Planning, Transportation, and Environment from 2000 to 2003, as well as the Finance and Economic Development portfolio between 2003 and 2011.
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