Zille said Johannesburg is a symbol of poor governance.
It’s official. The DA announced on Saturday that Helen Zille will be the party’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg. This comes after weeks of hints that the former Cape Town mayor, Western Cape premier and current federal chair of the party has thrown her hat into the ring for the nomination.
DA leader John Steenhuisen made the announcement at a Soweto rally. He said that it’s only when Johannesburg works, South Africa can work. “We cannot afford to sit by and witness the corruption, decay and mismanagement of the city,” he said.
He called it the story of a city that has been broken.
Zille also told supporters from the get-go of her nomination acceptance speech that the city had become the country’s “most devastating example of what bad government can do to great people”.
Zille on Johannesburg’s poor governance
In her address, Zille said she was standing as “a daughter of Johannesburg,” the city where she was born and raised. “It is the place where I took my first breath, my first steps and spoke my first words,” she said. “It is where I went to school, attended university, rented my first flat, and started my first job.”
She went on to say that while Joburg, as the country’s economic hub, represented the pinnacle of the new South Africa’s promise in 1994. Zille said that it had a reputation as the city of opportunity, a magnet for the best and brightest.
“It was the place to be. Now, just over 30 years later, many of its own residents see it as a place to flee,” she said.
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Zille said Johannesburg now symbolised the burden of poor governance.
“You feel it with every pothole on Louis Botha Avenue or the Golden Highway. You smell it when you walk down Pritchard Street in the CBD, and you see it when you open your tap in Lenasia or Soweto and no water comes out. Your heart sinks when you think of the hijacked buildings of Hillbrow and Berea, where I once lived in dignity but where families now live in danger. And you sense it in the fear of suburbs where people hunker down behind high walls and razor wire.”
‘Evict bad government’
“The good news is that in a democracy,” Zille said, “the people have more power than their government, if they will only use it. They can vote for change. They can evict a bad government and demand better.”
“We will wrestle our city back from a criminal mafia and return her to those who love her,” she said. “It is literally now or never. Let the forces for good in this city unite to save it from the forces for bad. Together we can make the City of Gold shine on our country, our continent, and all the world.”
Her mayoral campaign, said Zille, will focus on ensuring a city administration that employed capable professionals based on merit, not connections.
“Local government isn’t about ideology and grand ideals. It is about grand responsibility. The only job of local government is to deliver quality basic services. Water. Sewage. Refuse removal. Roads. Traffic lights. Electricity,” she said.
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Resilience lies in Joburg’s people
Zille said Johannesburg’s resilience lay in its people. “The most wonderful thing about Johannesburg is the resilience of its people who believe in the potential of this city and will work to fulfil it,” she said.
“For every tale of decline and collapse in Johannesburg, there is an equal and opposite force of rebuilding and renewal by dedicated residents.”
She said her role, if elected, would be to channel that collective energy of residents.
“All they need is a mayor and municipal government to get behind them and be the catalyst for change. To spend the multi-billion-rand city budget in the way that best contributes to the city’s resurrection, and to harness everyone’s efforts in a whole-of-society groundswell that turns our belief into reality.”
Zille then reprised President Cyril Ramaphosa’s comments earlier last week that DA-led municipalities have outperformed ANC run towns and metros.
“There is no braver act for a political leader than endorsing his main political opponent. Make no mistake, that is exactly what the president did. He told South Africa that the DA’s political offer is better than the ANC’s,” Zille said.
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