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Some who previously would have recoiled from voting DA may now see Zille as the Johannesburg’s last hope.
DA Federal Council chairperson Helen Zille. Picture: Nigel Sibanda
Like or loathe her, it doesn’t much matter. Even at the age of 74, Helen Zille remains a force of nature and her mayoral candidacy in Johannesburg could be a political game-changer with ripples beyond the rehabilitation of a dystopian urban wasteland.
Firstly, Zille’s candidacy is potentially the springboard to give the DA effective control not only of Johannesburg but also of Tshwane and Ekurhuleni. Secondly, with the ANC in decline, Gauteng would in turn possibly fall to a DA-led coalition in 2029. Thirdly, it would help resolve the ambiguous role that the DA currently plays in the GNU, where it is neither an influential partner nor an effective opposition.
While this depends on a lot of good fortune for the DA, it’s by no means an implausible scenario. With the right candidate for executive mayor, the DA could build the momentum needed to break out of half a dozen years of electoral stagnation.
Johannesburg is a basket case and the DA has previously come enticingly close in this metropolitan sprawl. In the 2021 municipal elections, it was the second-biggest party in Johannesburg, trailing the ANC’s 34% by only eight points. In Ekurhuleni, the gap was 9%, and in symbolically important Tshwane, which contains the nation’s administrative capital Pretoria, it was only 3%.
The question then is whether Zille — or GodZille as she’s been dubbed — is the charismatic candidate required. Not according to conventional wisdom, which maintains that whatever Zille’s qualities, she’s ‘beyond her sell-by date’, as well as being far too combative and divisive. It’s a view shared by many in her party.
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But these aren’t conventional times. At times of crisis, an ounce of Churchillian pugnaciousness outweighs a pound of performative empathy. Zille’s combativeness and her willingness to bulldoze rather than placate have proven successful in the past.
Her 2006 Cape Town mayoral victory was a pivotal moment for opposition forces in a post-apartheid landscape that had been completely dominated by the ANC. In 2009, she parlayed the Cape Town turnaround into winning the Western Cape, where she served as premier for the next decade.
The rest, as they say, is history. Cape Town, as a city, and the Western Cape, as a province, perform considerably better than their counterparts in the rest of South Africa on virtually every important metric.
Of course, it’s early days. However, there are signs that Johannesburg’s crisis is now so pressing that some who previously would have recoiled from voting DA may now see Zille as the city’s last hope.
One of the less obvious downsides of Zille’s mayoral candidacy is the threat it potentially poses to her own party.
As its Federal Council chairperson, she is the extra-parliamentary pivot around which the DA’s traditional opposition activities revolve. Any backsliding on the party’s liberal principles resulting from its participation in the ANC-led government of national unity (GNU) faces a fast and firm response from Zille. More than once, Zille has slapped sense into DA ministers when they appeared to succumb to Stockholm Syndrome and started waving white flags on foundational DA policies.
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When I ask Zille about her bid, she is characteristically straightforward. She points out that for the DA to succeed in Johannesburg, it needs a high-profile candidate. Most high-profile possibilities are deterred by the workload, the stress, the low pay — the city has an R86 billion budget but its chief executive earns less than a parliamentary backbencher — and are not thick-skinned enough to cope with the vicious abuse.
“Whatever happens,” Zille says, “this is the last roll of the dice for me and the very last roll of the dice for Johannesburg. So Johannesburg must just make damn sure that they make up their minds what they want.”
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