Five tough questions for Herman Mashaba

Herman Mashaba is one of South Africa’s most recognisable entrepreneurs and politicians and has become a key figure in the 2026 municipal elections.

Mashaba is best known in the business world as the founder of Black Like Me, a hair-care product company launched in 1985.

The company showed exceptional growth and became a multi-million-rand empire, making him one of South Africa’s most famous self-made millionaires.

In 2014, Mashaba entered the political arena when he joined the Democratic Alliance (DA) and campaigned in his home city, Johannesburg.

He was popular among residents of all races and served as the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg from August 2016 to November 2019.

He was the first non-ANC mayor of the city since 1994, leading a multi-party coalition to govern South Africa’s economic hub.

However, he resigned from both his mayoral position and the DA in late 2019, citing ideological differences with the party leadership.

He formed The People’s Dialogue in 2019 to create a medium to stimulate discussions between ordinary South Africans about social and civil issues.

In August 2020, he launched ActionSA. The party advocates for ethical leadership, economic prosperity, and the rule of law.

It positioned itself as a centrist alternative, emphasising free-market liberalism, anti-corruption measures, and a tough stance on issues like illegal immigration.

The newly launched ActionSA made its electoral debut in the 2021 South African municipal elections held in November.

It contested only six municipalities across Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces: Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, KwaDukuza, and Newcastle.

ActionSA secured 547,862 votes, translating to a national vote share of approximately 2.34% and 90 council seats across the contested municipalities.

The party won six seats in the National Assembly during South Africa’s 2024 general elections.

ActionSA is seen as a kingmaker in many prominent municipalities, including Johannesburg and Tshwane.

This means that the media and rival political parties are keeping a close eye on Mashaba and ActionSA’s strategy.

Newsday caught up with Mashaba and asked him 5 tough questions which many others are scared to ask. The full questions and Mashaba’s answers are provided below.

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Question 1: Do you believe ActionSA will do better in the local elections than in the 2024 general elections? If so, why do you believe this will happen? 

ActionSA has no choice but to perform well in the upcoming LGE. In fact, we are working towards the achievement of better results than what we achieved in 2021.

Why so? ActionSA has taken a decision not to contest all municipalities, but focus on strategic ones where we already have presence.

We have identified roughly 40 municipalities, classified into 3 categories. Category 1 includes those confirmed as certain, with 2 and 3 still needing to qualify. The 3 Metros in Gauteng are in category 1.

One criterion is to contest municipalities in which ActionSA stand a chance of being part of government.

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Question 2: ActionSA had previously promised voters that it would never work with the ANC. It is now in a coalition with the ANC in Tshwane. What changed?        

The issue of working or not working with the ANC is not unique to ActionSA. Remember, after the 2021 elections, we gave our support to the DA to run Tshwane.

Our engagement with the DA was toxic, arrogant and failing to listen to us about the provision of services to poor communities.

After the 2024 elections, the DA made advances to the ANC to structure working relationships in the 3 Metros in Gauteng, excluding ActionSA.

When this matter came to our attention, we took a proactive decision to act first.

We are pleased that the ANC and EFF accepted our proposal to remove the DA from Tshwane, with ActionSA putting forward Dr Nasiphi Moya as a mayor.

This is a decision that the entire country is today celebrating, a stable and effective coalition now running the capital city, providing services to all residents.

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Question 3: Some critics argue that the party’s primary political focus is to oppose the Democratic Alliance and nothing else. How do you respond to that? 

Those are the critics who thought ActionSA was a subsidiary of the DA. ActionSA is an independent political party, making decisions informed by our own policies and agendas.

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Question 4: Will ActionSA be willing to join the DA in a coalition in some municipalities if it means that the DA will yield the most power in those municipalities? 

ActionSA will work with any political party after the elections, with 3 non-negotiable demands:

1. Corruption declared Public Enemy Number One. We don’t want any party to protect ActionSA’s corruption because we will not protect you.
2. We must publicly commit to providing public services to all communities
3. We must commit to getting illegal foreigners out of the municipalities we govern  

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Question 5: Hypothetically, what would the non-negotiable conditions be for ActionSA to join the GNU, should there be a reconfiguration? 

ActionSA sees no reason to join the GNU. Joining the GNU in its current form is to compromise our independence and remove us from being a constructive opposition.

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