If Zille does get the nod as Joburg mayor – and it is by no means certain she will – she has a mountain, of garbage, to climb and remove.
Political principles don’t put water in people’s taps – or electricity in their light bulbs. Nor do they fill potholes.
That’s why it’s bizarre that the ANC hierarchy stands together against President Cyril Ramaphosa because he had the temerity to acknowledge that the DA is doing a good job where it is in charge.
ANC’s downfall
No-one can doubt that most of what the ANC touches turns to smelly brown stuff… but the comrades at the top would rather go down on the sinking municipal ship than admit its archenemy is far better at running towns and cities.
That attitude, unless it is ditched quickly, could rebound on the party at the upcoming local government elections – and not just because Helen Zille is leading a resurgent DA challenge.
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DA’s campaign
The residents of our towns and metros don’t need Zille or DA leader John Steenhuisen to tell them things are falling apart around them as service delivery collapses.
They don’t need the DA to tell them, either, that their erstwhile “revolutionary” leaders are living the fat cat high life, while looting the money needed for those very services.
It is true, as one expert we spoke to today notes, that the DA’s framing of its campaign in a simple “decay v renewal” narrative “seriously distorts the complex, systemic local governance challenges rooted in inequalities”.
Next mayor has a lot of work
However, the ANC had 31 years to at least make a dent in those inequalities… but it hasn’t.
If Zille does get the nod as Joburg mayor – and it is by no means certain she will – she has a mountain, of garbage, to climb and remove.
Whoever takes over as the city’s top executive needs to take an axe to the overpaid deadwood cadres deployed there by the ANC. And that would only be the first step towards saving Johannesburg.
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