On June 9 I sent a WhatsApp message to Helen Zille saying that if she stood for mayor I would support her — and hold her to account. WhatsApp being what it is I half-expected a blue-tick silence. Instead, weeks later here she is — the DA’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg. Careful what you text.
Since then the DA has rolled out the banners and brass band. It’s a smart move. Zille’s new job description: pothole whisperer, load-shedding therapist, chair of council brawls and chief spokesperson for a city that hasn’t worked properly since FM radio was still fashionable.
Politics apart — her track record there being as complex as a Joburg billing statement — Zille must focus on the nuts and bolts of municipal government. And let’s be honest: if anyone can balance a budget and fight off three union reps before breakfast, it’s her. Herman Mashaba is shrieking from the sidelines about how she wants to “bring back apartheid”. As if apartheid was about fixing streetlights and unclogging drains.
Leave aside, for a moment, the near-impossible task of undoing apartheid’s spatial legacy, Zille’s record shows consistent “pro-poor” spending — upgrading informal settlements, expanding water and electricity access and targeting housing needs. She may not throw glamorous banquets, but she does throw sewerage pipes into the ground — which, if you’ve spent five minutes in the Joburg city centre, is infinitely more valuable.
Cape Town vs Johannesburg
Even the president — who deserves a slow clap for his honesty; much kudos for his candour — has admitted this. Zille is right to brag about Cape Town’s 2024/25 infrastructure budget: 75% of it aimed at low-income households, much of it for upgrading informal settlements. Compare that to Joburg, where 75% of the budget often disappears faster than a car parked in Hillbrow.
Cape Town also tops the charts for basic services: water, sanitation and electricity. Yes, people still moan, but at least they moan while their lights are on. The city’s social development strategy also tried to generate income for those at risk of exclusion — radical stuff, I know.
— It’s taken 30 years to break Joburg and this is going to be a two-term project to fix it.
As Zille keeps reminding us: “it’s taken 30 years to break Joburg and this is going to be a two-term project to fix it.” Fair enough. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it took half a parliamentary term to break Joburg. All power to her shoulder — or her elbows, knees or sheer stubbornness — in trying to fix it. I’ll hold her to account, but she really does need to leave the national Twitter wars to the other keyboard gladiators and stay in her local lane.
That leaves John Steenhuisen to manage national politics for the DA. For better or worse, he continues to walk a tightrope across the government of national unity circus tent while juggling privileged minority demands, equity concerns and the occasional moral principle — assuming he remembers where he last put it.
Zille’s age? Not irrelevant, but frankly she has more drive than politicians young enough to confuse TikTok opinions with serious policy. She probably has a stricter gym regime too. The real question is: can she persuade Joburgers to give her the mandate?
If Zille is given a free hand, Johannesburg might just start working again, and if not, at least we’ll have the live entertainment of watching her try, which can only be better than the pitiful attempts we have been witness to up to now. Either way, the result won’t just be interesting; it will shape the national stage.
Think of it as Survivor: Sandton Edition meets Game of Thrones, but with fewer dragons and more water leaks. Despite my spat with the DA, I’m with Zille here — and that’s big of me, especially given her recent equivocation on genocide in Gaza.
• Cachalia, a businessman and management consultant, is a former DA MP and public enterprises spokesperson.
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