The DA announced Helen Zille as its mayoral candidate for Johannesburg at next year’s municipal polls.
DA leader John Steenhuisen told supporters in Soweto on Saturday that Johannesburg’s decline was not inevitable and said that the city could be restored through strong leadership and honest governance.
In what felt like a DA soft launch for its municipal election campaign ahead of next year’s poll also saw the party announce Helen Zille as mayoral candidate for Johannesburg.
Steenhuisen said Johannesburg remained at the centre of South Africa’s economy, but residents had been left to endure “dry taps, sewage spills, power cuts, crumbling roads and chaotic billing errors.”
He said these failures were not complicated issues. “Fixing these things is a basic function of a municipality. It is non-negotiable. A city as vibrant and resilient as Johannesburg should be thriving, not barely coping.”
DA soft launches election campaign
Steenhuisen spoke about the decay in the City of Gold. He laid the blame on “decades of neglect under singular ANC rule, propped up by coalitions of corruption,” adding that cadre deployment and patronage had hollowed out municipalities.
But he insisted that change was possible.
“This is not the end of Johannesburg. It is not even the beginning of the end. This is the moment when the people of Joburg say: the decay stops here; the renewal starts now.”
Steenhuisen said that there is a lack of leadership in the city.
“What we have today is not governance. It is decay. And it cannot continue.”
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He said the upcoming election would not simply be a contest between parties but “a choice between decay and renewal”.
Steenhuisen used the sustained water crisis Joburgers face as an example.
“There was a time when Rand Water was the pride of South Africa,” he said and added that “40 of Johannesburg’s 80 reservoirs are failing. Nearly half of our city’s billable water is lost to leaks. Families queue with buckets. Communities survive only because of good Samaritans who drill boreholes.”
Steenhuisen said that where his party governed outright, services were delivered. “We fix leaks faster, we collect the rubbish, and we invest in electricity, and we keep the water flowing through taps,” he said. “Don’t take my word for it. The Auditor-General confirms it. And even the ANC’s own president has admitted it, saying: ‘the municipalities which do best are DA municipalities’.”
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Steenhuisen warns against voting for smaller parties
He asked voters not to fragment their support among smaller parties during next year’s municipal poll. He said that it weakened opposition to corruption.
“Smaller parties get trapped in unstable coalitions, becoming pawns in political games. They are not strong enough to stand up to corruption, or to break the syndicates that are bleeding this city dry.”
Citing Cape Town’s turnaround under DA leadership since 2006, Steenhuisen said Johannesburg could experience the same.
“When honest leadership meets capable government, even the biggest problems can be overcome.”
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