Helen Zille, a 75-year-old former mayor of Cape Town nicknamed “gogo,” is running for mayor of Johannesburg in a November race that analysts say could reshape South African politics. Her pitch is simple: she’ll “fix” a city where residents have spent years waiting for basic services that don’t arrive.
Zille, who also headed the Western Cape province, has built her campaign on viral videos. She swims in potholes and paddles along flooded streets. The stunts have landed, putting pressure on the African National Congress (ANC), which leads a coalition in the city, and drawing in residents fed up with years of dysfunction.
A City Failing Its Residents
Johannesburg is Africa’s richest city. It also faces chronic power cuts and water shortages. Gangs sometimes take over downtown buildings, charging people to stay there. The city has had seven mayors in the last five years.
For residents, that churn comes at a real cost. Car repair shop owner Rashied Najam said officials repeatedly ignored his requests to fix a leaking sewage plant near his business. Then Zille showed up. “Here comes a lady that’s my total opposition, Helen Zille, and she meets me and she shakes my hand and hugs me,” Najam said. She later held a campaign event at his shop.
Najam said it’s the first time he plans not to back the ANC, the party of liberation hero Nelson Mandela. “I love them. But they’re disappointing,” he said.
Loyiso Masuku, the ANC’s Johannesburg regional chairperson and one of its potential mayoral candidates, acknowledged the service-delivery problems and blamed the city’s rapid growth. “We’re going to be proactive in terms of how we deal with our infrastructure challenges,” she said. Residents like Najam, she added, “do deserve better services.”
What’s at Stake
A Zille victory would give her pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) control of South Africa’s economic hub. It could also shift national politics ahead of the 2029 elections. The DA has held the Johannesburg mayor’s office twice before.
Zille was frank about the job’s scale. In an interview, she said Johannesburg would be much harder to govern than Cape Town. “Just getting functional budgeting and allocation working, getting rid of corruption, and focusing on the basics is going to be the big challenge of Joburg.”
The race also tests whether voters in the mostly Black city will cross racial lines after apartheid’s end. Critics often accuse the DA of defending white minority interests. The party denies it. Political analyst William Gumede said many South Africans “equate the ANC with their Black identity.” He said: “We don’t yet have enough people who have moved from a voting point of view from the apartheid racial identity barrier... to a new era where they vote based on competition.” He added: “But Johannesburg could actually be where we cross the barrier.”
ANC loyalty still runs deep. Jacob Seane, 83, a Soweto resident, said he’s voted for the party since South Africa’s first multiracial elections in 1994 and would never change. “I think they saw their mistakes and they will fix their mistakes,” he said.
A Tight Contest
Zille said internal DA polling shows her leading with about 40% of votes. An Ipsos poll in September told a tighter story, putting the ANC at 31% and the DA at 28%. No party is expected to win outright, so coalition negotiations will likely decide who runs the city government.
Asked about winning votes across racial lines, Zille said: “I just hope that when people get into that ballot box ... the tug of the past isn’t too strong.”
Why This Matters: Behind the campaign theatrics are people like Najam, who waited as officials looked away from a leaking sewage plant. Johannesburg’s record of seven mayors in five years, along with power cuts, water shortages and gang-controlled buildings, shows what happens when public institutions can’t deliver the basics. Residents who can’t pay for private alternatives bear the heaviest burden. The pro-business DA now competes with a liberation-era party whose own regional chairperson concedes residents deserve better. Since no party is expected to win outright, coalition bargaining will shape who answers to voters, and whether promises on budgeting and corruption turn into working services. The outcome could also signal how far South African politics has moved past apartheid-era identity, and how much voters now demand accountability.