Helen Zille attacks Gayton McKenzie’s PA

Helen Zille said that the PA reminds her of the mafia and are broadly crooks who know that the big capital flows are in government.

She shared her views on South Africa’s political landscape during an interview with JJ Tabane on the Frank Dialogue.

Zille is the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) mayoral candidate for the City of Johannesburg and has been on the campaign trail for the past few months.

Her campaign focuses on reversing the municipality’s collapse in service delivery and infrastructure and rooting out corruption and mismanagement.

She is chasing 490,000 votes in Johannesburg, which her team believes will give her an outright majority. However, this is unlikely to happen.

In the November 2021 municipal elections in the city, the DA captured only 26% of the vote, winning 71 out of 270 councillor seats.

To double the vote in five years, even when the ANC is expected to lose significant support, is unlikely. Polls also suggest that this will not happen.

Renowned political economist Frans Cronje said Helen Zille, the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate, will not win the election.

Cronje cited a March 2026 poll which asked voters whether they supported the idea of Zille becoming the Johannesburg mayor.

In Johannesburg, 65% of voters said they support the idea of Zille as their mayor. However, only 39% of Johannesburg voters said they would vote for the DA.

This means that the DA, and, therefore, Helen Zille, is unlikely to get enough support in Johannesburg to win outright.

This means that she will have to form a coalition if she wants to become mayor and fix the City of Johannesburg.

“When you’ve fought an election, and you didn’t get to 50%, you look at all the options to get to 50%. Then, you take the least bad option,” she said.

She said she will not work with Julius Malema’s EFF and is unlikely to partner with the Patriotic Alliance (PA), run by Gayton McKenzie.

She said she will look at all options and choose the route that ensures stable governance in the city.

Attack on Gayton McKenzie’s PA

Commenting on working with the PA to form a coalition, Zille did not have kind words about the party.

She likened the Patriotic Alliance, which was founded and is being led by Gayton McKenzie, to a criminal enterprise.

“The PA reminds me of the mafia in the early 20th century in America. They are broadly crooks who know that the big capital flows are in the government,” she said.

Zille further alleges that Gayton McKenzie and the PA got into politics because Jacob Zuma needed to have a party that would break the coloured vote for the DA.

She argued that people must understand who the Patriotic Alliance actually are. “They have shown us who they are,” she said.

Zille said that she has done a deep dive into the transport and roads portfolio in Johannesburg. “What we saw will make your hair stand on end,” she said.

“So, we have to know that they are in government to make money, and it is very difficult to align our political philosophy about being in government with theirs.”