Helen Zille will bow out of politics if Joburg voters reject her

Although she is in it to win it, Democratic Alliance (DA) Federal Executive Chairperson and Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate Helen Zille says she would retire from politics if voters overwhelmingly reject her.

Speaking to Clement Manyathela on Radio 702, Zille said that she has no interest in continuing to hold a leadership position in the DA ahead of the party’s upcoming April elective conference.

Furthermore, she said she will bow out of politics if the upcoming local government elections do not yield a solid DA performance in Johannesburg.

“Obviously, we are in it to win it. We don’t go in to lose, and we will put a massive effort in to win it,” she said.

“If that doesn’t work, if the voters of Johannesburg decide they want more of the same that they’ve currently got, and they split their vote amongst all kinds of small parties,” she said.

“Knowing that those small parties will go into a coalition with the ANC…well then the voters get the government they voted for, which is very sad,” she said.

Zille said that in this case, she might stick around if there is a possibility that ANC-governed coalitions could fall from power quite early.

This is to ensure the DA is the best opposition possible or to re-negotiate an agreement that could see them get the mayoral chains.

“But frankly, I’ll be honest, it’s been a big sacrifice for me to leave my family to come and relocate to Joburg,” she said.

“If I’m the mayor, I’ll obviously do that for five years, and I will not look back. But if I’m not going to be given that opportunity to fix Joburg, and the voters have rejected it, then there’s no point in me continuing.”

At 74 years old, and after a long career in politics, Manyathela asked Zille if she was ready to leave the world of politics behind and bow out if that was the case.

While confident in her party’s performance at the polls, she was candid about her interest in senior party leadership positions.

“I’m ready to go,” she responded, because she is not worried about the DA’s future, unlike when she bowed out as leader several years ago, only to return as Federal Council chairperson.

“We’ve got strong institutions now. I don’t think that they will be captured or manipulated at all,” she said. “There are a lot of good people who’ve come up and who can do the job.”

A seasoned politician

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 party 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, ultimately making her Premier.

Zille stepped down as party leader in 2015, and 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.