Eventually, Zille will go back to the Cape - whether to retire or as a defeated candidate remains to be seen.
The DA’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate, Helen Zille. Picture: Gallo Images/Brenton Geach
Helen Zille was evasive about her personal future when, in a radio interview this week, she refused to say whether she will leave Johannesburg and return to Cape Town if she loses the fight to become Joburg’s next mayor.
That’s understandable – especially when you think about her situation, which she was open about.
Her husband, she told the interviewer, is 83 years old and has his life in Cape Town, where the couple were living in a small retirement village prior to the DA politician deciding to enter the hustings in Joburg.
He, she added, does not want to move up north unless he is “100% sure we are going to win”.
And, because he has given up so much for her in her political career, she has to respect his view.
Does this mean, potential Joburg voters, that Zille has less than a 100% commitment to the city of her birth and the place she claims to love?
She’s no spring chicken herself, at 75, so uprooting her life and taking on the huge stress of trying to turn the country’s most important metro around would not have been an easy decision to make.
That’s a commitment. True, Zille loves a fight and has never walked away from one in her life.
And she has got stuck into her political opponents on the Reef with gusto, winning the social media war hands down.
She’s also making the right noises about what needs to be done to fix the city but, at the same time, warning it will be a long, painful process, even if everything goes well.
Eventually, Zille will go back to the Cape – whether to retire or as a defeated candidate remains to be seen.
If it’s the latter, the future looks bleak. For the city and the rest of the country.
