[This old anti-white sack of shit pretends to be liberal these days. Jan]

Treading where others have not, gritty DA City of Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille’s campaign in the run-up to the November local government polls, has exposed how the ANC-led metro municipal leadership has failed residents in providing basic services.

In taking her fight to the Public Protector (PP), Zille has this week lodged a formal complaint with the PP in terms of Section 182 of the constitution - on behalf of Eldorado Park, Kliptown, Nancefield, Claremont (Johannesburg) and Alexandra residents – short-changed by the system.

“This complaint is submitted with regards to the continuing failure of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, including its municipal entities and the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements, to provide basic municipal services in a progressive and effective manner and the non-implementation of the remedial action directed in July 2021 joint report of the Public Protector and the South African Human Rights Commission concerning Alexandra township,” said Zille in an affidavit.

Criss-crossing several parts of Johannesburg, Zille has braved a strong stench from raw sewerage flowing from Soweto’s derelict Nancefield sewer pump into Klipspruit River, visited the condemned Maxwell Court residential building in Claremont and an engaged with residents at the Helen Joseph Women’s Hostel in Alexandra last Friday, which has turned into a pit of squalor.

Areas visited by Zille during her campaign trail, have pointed to the City of Johannesburg inability to take appropriate action in serving communities.

The Nancefield sewer pump station is a Johannesburg water installation situated at the corner of Stockwell Avenue and Boundary Road in Soweto.

In November 2023, an oversight inspection recorded that the sewer pumping station behind the Eldorado Park Cemetery was in a state of disrepair, causing raw sewage to spill into the Klipspruit River – flowing into the Klip River, forming part of the integrated Vaal River System, from which drinking water is drawn.

In January 2026, a major pipe burst occurred in Boundary Road, Kliptown, affecting Eldorado Park’s extensions 7 and 9, Klipspruit and Klipspruit West.

Said Zille: “In March 2026, elderly residents of the Nancefield Retirement Village, reported a sewer spillage of approximately a month’s duration from a municipal manhole outside the facility, with wastewater flowing into the village and into residents’ toilets – with repeated reports to authorities yielding no result.

“These local failures occur against a documented systematic collapse of the city’s wastewater function.”

Municipal owned Maxwell Court is a residential block of about 60 units – where there has been a prolonged absence of water, inoperative water pumps and mould on the walls.

“If it is so that the City of Johannesburg has condemned its own rental stock, after years of documented non-maintenance, with tenants in occupation, that conduct implicates the city’s obligation as an organ of state and as a landlord under Section 26 of the constitution,” said Zille.

The Helen Joseph Women’s Hostel in Alexandra is another site of squalor.

This, despite R17.5 having been spent in the refurbishment of the hostel, with visible work not commensurate with the reported expenditure.

On shaky ground in the upcoming elections due to grappling with a myriad of challenges – owing creditors billions of rand and recently being hit with a National Treasury freeze on funding, due to financial mismanagement – Johannesburg has a gross national product estimated at R2.31 trillion to R2.47 trillion.

Several setbacks, which have included financial collapse, water and power crisis; waste mismanagement, inner city decay, infrastructure and illegal mining, the City of Johannesburg, governed by Executive Mayor Dada Morero (ANC) and a coalition of EFF, ActionSA and the Patriotic Alliance, is set to see the biggest battle for Jozi.

Leading experts the Mail & Guardian spoke to were unanimous in describing the Zille campaign as making an impact in the run-up to the local government elections.

Professor Dirk Kotze, political scientist with the University of South Africa, said of the ANC and Johannesburg, Zille has already made an impact “in the sense that she has become very unconventional in her approach in the campaigning”.

“In campaigning, your approach normally is to expose your opponents and their weaknesses.

“You present yourself as the saviour and the one that can address the weaknesses of opponents - especially if you are not part of government.

“In her case, she is actually split between the two, because on the one hand she is associated with the DA that's in government in quite a number of places.

“And then in Johannesburg, the DA was in government, especially after the 2021 election and in 2016 - obviously in coalitions.

“What she wants to demonstrate is that the general state of Johannesburg has reached the point of it not only being about the ANC but parties it is sharing a similar view with.

“The conventional way of campaigning is now associated with rather elitist political actions - that of those involved in political parties.

“It doesn't have a sort of a more popular appeal and it's not there for the voters necessarily.

“Parties take voters for granted and it's more a competition among them in terms of positions.

“It is not so much whether they are being elected by the voters and that the voters have the final say in that respect,” said Kotze.

He said Zille’s unconventional campaigning underscored that she “does not accept the stereotypes that exist about the DA”.

“For many the DA is predominantly a white party, predominantly a liberal party, predominantly a party that is focused on the private sector and especially in the free market form.

“The ANC approach and the way in which it presents itself is largely that the state has that responsibility and the state must do it.

“It's a way in which people in a sense are not seen as being independent.

“And, therefore, they (voters) cannot determine their own futures.

“It should go through a planned process of which the state is the main author,” explained Kotze.

Concurring with Kotze, political economist Dale McKinley, said Zille has already made an impact in Johannesburg.

Said McKinley: “The gate is now wide open.

“I think it is putting it very kindly to talk about weaknesses in ANC governance.

“The ANC has brought the city to its knees over the last two decades and is paying for it already in terms of lost support and people just being fed up.

“And of course, Helen and the DA have taken some of that gap.

“Indications are that DA is potentially going to be the largest party in the Johannesburg Metro after the elections.

“The question is, how big is the impact going to be in electoral terms.”

McKinley said Zille’s style of campaigning has brought her attention, “having made people laugh a little bit”.

“She has raised serious issues light-heartedly - in a way that made the ANC look silly in some ways.

“But it's not a sustainable approach in terms of campaigning.

“Ultimately it's going to be about door-to-door, getting out and doing the hard work on the ground.

“Campaigning is about messaging and getting people to believe that the DA and Helen are not going to do exactly the same things that other people have done – not reproducing Cape Town in Johannesburg - where racial politics comes in.”

McKinley conceded that attracting black African votes was a factor for the DA in Johannesburg.

“The possibility is that there'll be a lot of people who will not vote for the DA.

“But they won't vote for the ANC or any other party either,” said McKinley

Making a plea to DA supporters in Alexandra, Zille said: “We don't bother to register or go out to vote.

“That is the only group of people that can beat us in this election - those DA supporters who don't get registered.

“If we can just mobilise the DA supporters to register and vote, we can win on the 4th of November.”

Source: https://mg.co.za/politics/2026-07-22-zille-s-effective-campaign-in-johannesburg/