Helen Zille officially in the 2026 Joburg mayoral race

Former Western Cape Premier, Cape Town Mayor, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, and now Chairperson of the party’s Federal Council, Helen Zille, has officially declared her candidacy for the next mayor of Johannesburg.

Zille, 74, was announced as the DA’s candidate for mayor of South Africa’s largest city and economic hub at a party event in Soweto on 20 September.

“It is a privilege for me to accept the nomination as your mayoral candidate for this great City.” She believes her “whole life, and every previous job, has been preparing me for this.”

Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city with a 2025 population of approximately 6.4 million, contributes about 16% to the nation’s GDP and 40% to Gauteng’s economic activity.

However, the city has faced a decline in performance, with President Cyril Ramaphosa lamenting its state in council earlier this year.

Currently, Johannesburg is grappling with a deepening water crisis, with outages so widespread that Parliament has ordered Mayor Dada Morero to deliver a recovery plan within three weeks.

He was summoned on Friday, 19 September, alongside Rand Water and the Department of Water and Sanitation, to account for the situation.

Zille’s speech painted Johannesburg as a critical city in decline, citing dry taps, potholes, and broken infrastructure, warning against accepting “brokenness as the new normal.”

Party leader John Steenhuisen reinforced the message, arguing that Johannesburg is too important to the country’s economy to slide.

He too listed service breakdowns, sewage spills, power cuts, and billing chaos as symptoms of years of cadre deployment and political patronage.

Steenhuisen told Newsday that the DA has demonstrated in Cape Town that municipal turnaround is possible, saying that the city was stabilised after 2006 with improved financial management and investment in basic services.

In a boost and likely anchor to the DA’s 2026 campaign, Ramaphosa recently told ANC party councillors that “municipalities that do best are not ANC-controlled municipalities… they are often DA-controlled municipalities.”

Steenhuisen latched on the line “we want to go and see what Cape Town is doing” saying “you can read the Auditor-General’s reports, or read Ratings Afrika, or if you don’t have time for that, just listen to the president.”

Gauteng DA leader Solly Msimanga expressed optimism about the party’s prospects, citing internal polling that placed the DA ahead of the ANC in Johannesburg.

This will be the first local government elections for the ANC since the formation of former president Jacob Zuma’s MK Party.

DA Johannesburg council caucus leader Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku, who was a nominee for mayor against Zille, told Newsday that her caucus is excited to have a candidate “of the caliber of Helen Zille” going into 2026.

Zille said that she “acknowledges with respect all the other candidates who gave me stiff competition for this honour.”

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A Joburg native

A Johannesburg native, Zille was born in Hillbrow to parents who had fled Nazi persecution. She went to school at St Mary’s School Waverley.

She then studied at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she joined the Young Progressives, and later worked as a journalist at the Rand Daily Mail.

There, she exposed the truth behind Steve Biko’s death, having been killed by security police, directly contradicting the government’s false claims of a hunger strike.

She then worked in various NGOs and in 1989, Zille founded a public policy consultancy before becoming Director of Development and Public Affairs at UCT in 1993.

Invited by the Democratic Party to draft education policy, she entered the Western Cape Legislature in 1999 as MEC for Education. By 2004, she was a DA MP, deputy federal chairperson, and national spokesperson.

Zille became Cape Town mayor in March 2006 after the DA won 90 seats in the 210-seat Cape Town City Council, becoming the single largest part with 42.0% of the vote.

She formed a multi-party coalition with smaller parties like the Independent Democrats (ID), Freedom Front Plus (FF+), and others to secure a majority.

Her tenure from 2006 to 2009 saw her win the World Mayor Award, with measurable improvements in audits, service access, and economic growth, though challenges persisted.

She became DA leader in 2007, and the party secured the Western Cape in 2009 and ultimately making her Premier.

Zille stepped down as party leader in 2015, served two terms as Premier until 2019. At the end of 2019, she became chair of the DA’s federal council, a position she still holds.

The current DA federal chairperson is now set to pack her things in the Western Cape and campaign in Johannesburg.

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A metro up for grabs

The DA is looking to regain the mayoral chains in the economic hub, however this time with an outright majority.

The party argues that stability is only possible if it controls the council without relying on coalitions, which have defined local governance since the ANC lost its majority in 2016.

That year, Herman Mashaba became mayor with EFF support, though the party never formally joined the government.

The minority arrangement held until Mashaba resigned in 2019, citing ideological differences, including the DA’s election of Zille as federal council chair.

The ANC returned with Geoff Makhubo as mayor, but his tenure was cut short by his death in 2021. His successors, Jolidee Matongo and Mpho Moerane, each served only briefly before the 2021 elections.

Afterward, the council fractured further, producing five mayors in under two years. Dr. Mpho Phalatse of the DA was elected in November 2021 with backing from a multi-party coalition but was ousted in September 2022.

The ANC’s Dada Morero briefly replaced her before a court reinstated her, only for her to face another no-confidence vote in January 2023.

The instability continued when Al Jama-ah’s Thapelo Amad was elected in February 2023.

His tenure ended two months later amid controversy over a loan scandal, and he was succeeded by Kabelo Gwamanda, also of Al Jama-ah.

Gwamanda survived until August 2024, when he too was removed in a no-confidence motion.

Morero was re-elected mayor with ActionSA’s support in August 2024 and has governed since. Yet with Johannesburg’s fragile coalitions hinging on the votes of smaller parties, uncertainty remains.

Zille is set to contest against Patriotic Alliance deputy president Kenny Kunene, who has been confirmed as the party’s candidate.

Meanwhile, the ANC and its coalition partners in Johannesburg, like the Economic Freedom Fighters, have yet to put forward any nominees.

ActionSA, which received 16% of the vote in 2021, has not announced a candidate yet, but party officials have hinted at its founding president, Herman Mashaba, as a possible candidate.

He is a former mayor of the city when he was in the DA, but left the party citing ideological differences and clashes with Zille.