South Africa: Real Politics - Winning Johannesburg May Not Be Enough for Helen Zille

Helen Zille is running the strongest campaign in Johannesburg, but she is not yet winning the coalition war, Zukile Majova writes in Real Politics.

The DA can finish first on 4 November and still watch an ANC-led alliance elect the mayor. That is the paradox shaping Johannesburg's municipal election. Winning the election and winning the mayoralty are no longer the same thing.

Coalition politics has changed everything.

Johannesburg is heading into another hung council. No single party appears capable of securing the 136 seats needed for an outright majority in the 270-seat council. The city's next government will almost certainly be decided after election day, when parties begin negotiating behind closed doors.

The DA enters the race with momentum, but also with unfinished business.

In 2016, the party came within touching distance of taking Johannesburg outright after winning close to 480,000 votes. Five years later, that support had collapsed to about 240,000 proportional representation votes. Some voters stayed home. Many defected to Herman Mashaba's ActionSA. Others drifted to smaller parties.

For Zille to achieve her ambition, the DA must recover much of that lost support. That means persuading former DA voters that returning to the party offers the best chance of changing Johannesburg's fortunes, while expanding into communities where the party has historically struggled.

The DA's biggest challenge is no longer defeating the ANC. It is rebuilding the broad coalition of voters that briefly made outright victory seem possible almost a decade ago.

The political landscape, however, has shifted dramatically since then.

The biggest new variable is Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe Party. MK did not exist during the 2021 local government elections. Yet in the 2024 provincial election, the party won more than 172,000 votes in Johannesburg, largely at the ANC's expense.

At first glance, that appears to benefit the DA by weakening the ANC. But the reality is more complicated. Every new party in the council makes coalition negotiations more complex. MK may reduce the ANC's vote share while simultaneously increasing the number of parties available for an anti-DA coalition after the election.

That is why this contest cannot be understood simply as a race between the DA and the ANC. It is a contest between competing coalition blocs.

The by-election results since 2021 reinforce this picture. The DA remains exceptionally strong in its traditional suburban heartlands, winning overwhelming majorities in wards across the northern suburbs. But outside those strongholds, progress has been harder.

The breakthrough in Evaton earlier this year, where the DA narrowly won a township ward in Emfuleni, suggested that the party can attract black working and middle-class voters frustrated by collapsing public services. But one victory does not signal a realignment. More telling is what has happened in Johannesburg itself. Despite holding its suburban base comfortably, the DA has not won a single Johannesburg by-election from another party since the 2021 municipal elections.

Another party has.

The Patriotic Alliance has quietly become one of the biggest winners of the coalition era, taking wards from both the ANC and the DA and steadily increasing its bargaining power. It may not emerge as one of Johannesburg's largest parties. But in a fragmented council, even a handful of seats could determine who becomes mayor.

This is precisely why Zille's task extends beyond campaigning. She must also convince potential coalition partners that a DA-led administration would be worth supporting.

That may prove more difficult than winning votes.

Relations between the DA and ActionSA remain strained after years of unstable coalition governments in Johannesburg and Tshwane. Smaller parties have frequently accused the DA of adopting a dominant approach to coalition management. Those tensions contributed to the revolving door of mayors that has characterised Johannesburg over the past five years.

The ANC has shown greater flexibility. Its alliances with the EFF, Al Jama-ah and smaller parties have often been unstable, but they have repeatedly achieved one objective: preventing the DA from governing South Africa's biggest metros. MK now introduces another possible partner into that equation.

For the DA, therefore, becoming the biggest party may only be the first hurdle. The second is assembling a stable governing majority before its rivals do.

That brings the focus back to turnout.

The DA's clearest route to power is not persuading large numbers of ANC supporters to switch. It is motivating former DA supporters who stayed away in 2021 to return to the polls. If those voters come back in significant numbers, the DA moves closer to governing. If they stay home, coalition arithmetic begins to favour everyone else.

Johannesburg's election is often described as a referendum on service delivery. It is certainly that. Residents are living with failing infrastructure, water shortages, electricity interruptions and deteriorating roads.

But politically, this election is about something bigger.

It is a referendum on whether coalition politics can produce a stable government.

Zille is presenting herself as the experienced administrator who restored confidence in Cape Town and the Western Cape. Her campaign is built on competence rather than ideology. Whether that message resonates beyond the DA's traditional support base remains the defining question of the campaign.

One thing already seems clear. Johannesburg is unlikely to produce a decisive winner. It will almost certainly produce a complicated negotiation. The DA could finish first. The ANC could finish second. MK could reshape the balance of power. The Patriotic Alliance and other smaller parties could become kingmakers.

When the votes are counted, the battle for Johannesburg may only just be beginning.

That is why Helen Zille can win the election and still lose City Hall.

Read the original article on Scrolla.