The ANC is in terminal decline and while the organisation cannot be fixed, Joburg can be saved, says Joburg DA mayoral candidate Helen Zille.
The ruling party has lost its ability to govern and it’s been so for some time, she said.
Zille accuses ANC of self-destruction
It’s a party that’s “turned on itself” with members in-fighting, following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s lauding of DA-run municipalities, instead of taking pause to reflect on its shortcomings.
According to Zille, Ramaphosa’s words should have prompted action but instead triggered paranoia.
“What it has done is create a witch-hunt against the president for telling the truth.
“Far from asking what we can do to fix it, they ask, how can we get rid of this president. They never look at themselves and say, ‘we have a problem’.
“The ANC has got none of the three legs on which a coherent organisation is built,” Zille said.
“They do not have a coherent political philosophy, the organisation is in chaos and they cannot attract talent. What they have done is blow themselves up on patronage.”
Zille said voters are no longer willing to be taken for granted.
“The ANC are so used to getting support election after election that they don’t think they have to change anything. They think voters will vote for them in perpetuity. And suddenly the voters are saying, no.
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“That’s what they’ve been doing for 30 years and they’re finding it doesn’t wash forever when you have collapsing services.”
Restoring basic services in Johannesburg
For Zille, the starting point in Joburg is to restore the basics.
“When you get elected to local government, the job is to do the things that the constitution says you have to do – and that is deliver basic services.”
Water would be her top priority, Zille said.
“There’s no single basic service that is as important as water. For 30 years, there’s been no maintenance and no development of new infrastructure. That is why there isn’t enough bulk water.
“The first order of business will be to invest in the maintenance of the infrastructure. It’s not going to solve the problem overnight, but we’ve got to have a plan and we’ve got to provide water to residents in the meantime.”
It should be the same with the electricity infrastructure, streetlights and roads, refuse removal and sewage systems “that need tremendous investment. Those are the things on my list”, she said.
Examples of success within the city
Joburg is not without examples of what can be achieved.
“It’s not all bad. There are pockets of goodness and excellence in Johannesburg as it is.”
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Newtown, she said, is an example of what is possible.
“There is a wonderful student precinct in the CBD, surrounded by devastation, but it looks like another country. It looks really fantastic and I would like to take my hat off to the people who did this and show what’s possible in the rest of Johannesburg.”
In Orlando, Soweto, things were also looking up in places.
“They were looking good, like middle-class suburbs now. It was clean. I don’t know if they’d just been cleaned up for the G20, but the place was looking good.”
DA’s prospects in Johannesburg elections
She said the city has the potential to reclaim its place as an African powerhouse metro.
“It’s very possible to be a world-class African city again. Joburg’s got the potential to be the most throbbing, vibrant, growing and economically productive city in Africa. We’ve just got to get the governance right,” Zille said.
On the DA’s prospects and hers as potential mayor, she was bullish.
“We really have a good chance of becoming the biggest party in Johannesburg. Polling is showing us now that we are the biggest party.
“But it is critically important for us to be the biggest party by a thumping margin. Trying to do it in a coalition is unbelievably difficult.”
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