Helen Zille during the official announcement of the Johannesburg mayoral candidate for the DA on September 20, 2025, in Soweto, South Africa. Image Credit: Gallo Images/Fani Mahuntsi via The Citizen
(The Post News) – Democratic Alliance federal chair, Helen Zille, explained that her unprecedented bid to become the mayor of two major metropolitan cities was driven by their inability to find a suitable candidate. She has recently placed her name forward as the DA’s mayoral candidate for the City of Johannesburg.
In a News24 interview, the former Cape Town mayor revealed that the DA spent a while interviewing and looking for suitable mayoral candidates before saying, “Damn it, I’m gonna do it”. As someone who was born and got her first stripes in Joburg, Zille feels that with analysis and proper governance, it would be possible to fix what has been broken.
Her first step, she said, would be to assess and acknowledge the scale of the city’s challenges – a task she is fully aware of. Zille added that she has a one-year plan that involves “being on the ground” to better understand the depth of these issues and develop feasible, effective solutions.
Zille’s Main Priorities
One major issue Zille has critiqued is the water crisis, which she says is a key indicator of poor and “incompetent” governance. She said, “It’s very hard to live without electricity, but it’s impossible to live without water”. According to Zille, poor service delivery issues, management incompetence and alleged corruption are things she wants to analyse and tackle, although it is going to be “enormously” difficult.
During her announcement for candidacy, she mentioned she had already seen financial irregularities in the city’s budget. She claimed only 1% of the funds were allocated to public maintenance when the norm is at least 8%, yet repetitive administrative posts are being funded that are not in the budget.
She says that part of the city’s decay is due to the lack of separation between the African National Congress party and the municipality. She alleged that the “ANC gives out instructions about deploying cadres, about dishing out contracts and tenders and about enriching certain people” – something she will put an end to.
Though Zille is aware of pushback from the ANC and criticism that the DA prioritises affluent, predominantly white suburbs over townships, she said she will continue to stand by her truth and hopes voters will listen.
Please share your thoughts, contact Lukhona via email: journalist-lukhona@thepostnews.net
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