By Michael Beaumont
On a good day Helen Zille is a polarising figure, on a bad day she is a wrecking-ball to race relations in South Africa. This is why it is not surprising that a strategically placed article to soft-launch Zille’s mayoral campaign in Joburg caused the stir that it did.
To place the bias upfront, it must be acknowledged that the Helen Zille who led the DA in 2007, at the time when many joined the party, was regarded as a remarkable leader. It was the Helen Zille of 2019 who alienated not just former supporters but many others when she became the poster grandmother for the DA’s shift to the right.
Amusingly, some commentators have misread the political mood and assumed that the DA’s opponents fear a Helen Zille mayoral campaign. This assumption warrants correction. In reality, nothing would please ActionSA more than for its opponents in Johannesburg to be the failed Dada Morero and the polarising Helen Zille.
In such a scenario, any credible alternative, particularly one led by the only mayor who delivered real progress in the city, would stand out in the eyes of rational Johannesburg residents.
There is no question that the timing of Zille’s soft launch opportunistically sought to take advantage of the desperation felt by Joburg residents in response to a city that is objectively failing on every level.
Judging by the response, the tactic achieved its intended impact. At this point, many residents seem willing to trade logic for a little bit of hope. However, it is important to look past the storm and examine the merits of the idea.
Saying that Cape Town is better run than Johannesburg is stating the obvious but, let’s be frank, one can slither over the bar of Joburg’s governance right now.
Similarly, no reasonable person can deny the role that Helen Zille has played in Cape Town a long, long time ago. However, the central idea of Zille’s candidacy is predicated upon the absurd notion that Cape Town is transplantable in Johannesburg – something, if believable, would have seen more voters across the country buy into the DA by now.
Equally, if the experience of good governance in Cape Town was shared uniformly across all communities, the DA would have more than the paltry 5 or 10% support it achieves in poor black communities there.
Johannesburg and Cape Town could not be more different. Cape Town was wrestled away from the ANC 19 years ago in a condition that is vastly more amenable to turnaround than Joburg is now. Any business-minded person will tell you that two completely different CEOs are required for those two jobs.
Those who have worked in the City of Johannesburg attest that the structures and organisational cultures of the two cities differ significantly. To make this point consider the fact that Cape Town when Zille took over in 2006 had been governed more by the National Party than it had by the ANC at the time of Zille’s election as Mayor.
Johannesburg is a city in which the large majority of its residents are black South Africans that still suffer deeply from the worst socio-economic legacy of an unjust past whereas, in Cape Town, black South Africans are only around 25% of the population.
This context matters. It is difficult to see Johannesburg residents rallying behind a candidate who has previously attributed poverty to laziness or who has romanticised aspects of colonial history.
We approach perhaps the most significant idea of how the notion of Zille as Mayor of Joburg is based on absurd naivety, and this is based on an appreciation of the numbers that shows how Joburg will only be run in coalition.
For those who understand the art of running local municipal coalitions, the personality of those involved is more important than the parties they represent and Zille is perhaps the most unlikely person around which parties and people would coalesce.
Some will point to her term as Mayor in 2006 as evidence against my argument but would be unwittingly making the very point argued for two reasons. Firstly, the Helen Zille of 2006 would not have gotten on well with the Helen Zille of 2025.
Secondly, the Cape Town coalition only survived because the then Independent Democrats bailed Zille out and, like nearly every other party in coalition with the DA in Cape Town back then, the DA has rewarded that support by tossing De Lille.
As a matter of fact, the list of political parties in South Africa today that have reported coalitions with the DA to be challenging now includes the ANC, IFP, EFF, PA, ActionSA, FF Plus and the ACDP. Can all of these parties all really be wrong?
Most importantly nearly every one of these parties has reported that it was Zille herself, even against the wishes of the DA’s provincial or local structures, that collapsed coalitions or negotiations.
As a matter of fact, the reason why the DA and ANC were not able to extend their GNU coalition arrangements into the Gauteng provincial and local government spaces was because of a last-minute set of demands Zille placed on talks which, according to those present, seemed to have the desired effect of preventing any arrangement being concluded.
Another illustrative example occurred in 2022 when ActionSA, the DA, the FF Plus, the ACDP, the IFP and the PA had reached an agreement to reclaim Johannesburg from the ANC.
To everyone’s astonishment ActionSA had given two of its three positions to the PA to make this deal happen because we knew the alternative would be worse. Every party signed onto this deal including the DA’s Gauteng team.
Gayton McKenzie even publicly announced it in the media and the numbers were on our side right up until the moment Zille personally pulled the plug over the protests of the DA in Gauteng.
This is the very reason why Joburg is in the mess that it is in today, ironically the mess that Zille (as its creator) now, conveniently, avails herself to fix. If one has regard for facts and evidence, the idea that Zille or the DA care about Joburg is about as far fetched as the idea that any party will work with her in coalition.
They say that desperate people will turn to desperate measures which is exactly what is being counted upon with Zille’s mayoral campaign.
For Johannesburg residents who often go without electricity or water, the desperation is real and relatable. But history shows that desperation has never been the birthplace of good ideas.
Joburg requires leadership that will unite its diverse residents and this is entirely possible given how they are currently united in their dislike for the current state of affairs.
Residents who believe Johannesburg’s best days are still ahead would be better served not to invest their hopes in someone whose best days are already behind them.
Michael Beaumont is ActionSA National Chairperson.
This article was first published in the Sunday Times, 22 June 2025.
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