Helen Zille could win Johannesburg with the ‘Donald Trump effect’

Helen Zille will win the 2026 local elections in Johannesburg due to a low voter turnout and the “Donald Trump” effect, according to political analyst Tessa Dooms.

In an interview with SMWX, Dooms said that the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) decision to announce Zille as its Johannesburg mayoral candidate so early – a year and a half before the elections – was a smart, calculated political decision.

Dooms is a Director at Youth Lab, a platform for young people who are not affiliated with any party, but want to engage in politics.

She is a sociologist, political analyst, and development practitioner with 15 years of experience.

Speaking about the upcoming local elections, Dooms said that established parties like the DA and the African National Congress (ANC) are not really interested in gaining new voters or expanding the electorate.

Rather, “they are very comfortable with the declining voter participation” because they know how to mobilise their supporters and are relying on voter apathy to get them over the line.

She sees selecting Zille as part of this strategy to mobilise existing supporters.

“When people like [ActionSA leader] Herman Mashaba say that no black people will vote for her, I’m like, you’re right. They won’t vote for Helen; they will stay at home,” she said. 

However, Dooms added that South Africans are increasingly becoming fed up with a lack of service delivery and are willing to go as far as to trade their democratic rights for development outcomes, making this the perfect time for a sensational leader promising drastic reforms, such as Zille. 

Voters looking for drastic change

“There’s an Afrobarometer study that was done in 2023, which saw a growing number of people in South Africa are willing to give away their right to vote for more delivery in terms of democracy,” said Dooms. 

“So that number was about 72%. Now I want to link that to a 2024 study that said about 30% of South Africans are ready for military rule,” she said. 

Dooms, therefore, explains that voters are desperate for improvements in service delivery and willing to bend their political values for better service delivery.

She said that in Johannesburg, there is a black middle class that would usually vote for the ANC.

Dooms predicts that, fed up with the ANC’s service delivery failures, these voters will silently vote for Zille instead.

She compared this to Donald Trump winning the United States elections in 2016. She said that, while the world did not see enough support for Trump to be voted in, silent voters put him in power due to frustration with a lack of developmental outcomes in the US.

Trump surprised many in 2016 when he was elected president over Hillary Clinton. 

According to Politico, Trump rose to victory by appealing to a working-class, white demographic that was “so disgusted by a stalled status quo that they voted for a candidate promising dramatic change, even as Trump set disapproval records for a winning candidate.”

Silent voters to make the difference

Dooms further alluded to the current mission of the Madlanga Commission of inquiry investigating the capture of the police and criminal justice system, based on allegations shared by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi on 6 July 2025. 

In this moment of crisis, Dooms said the country is “very ripe for somebody to come down a golden escalator,” referring to the moment Trump announced his presidential candidacy by descending the escalator of the Trump Tower. 

Zille, at the age of 74, declared her candidacy for mayor of Johannesburg in September 2025, with plans to address the city’s declining state through improved service delivery, drawing on her successful track record as mayor of Cape Town and Western Cape Premier. 

She paints Johannesburg as a critical city in decline, citing dry taps, potholes, and broken infrastructure, warning against accepting “brokenness as the new normal.”

In a similar way to that of Trump, Zille promises drastic change to disrupt the status quo.