It used to be that townships like Soweto hardly featured on the campaign trail of politicians of a certain hue. It was simply a ridiculous fool’s errand. Definitely not worth it, because you’d be lucky if people came out, luckier still if they actually listened, and a miracle if any them gave you their vote.
Enter Helen Zille; by the reckoning of several pundits, a tannie who ought to be a pensioner minding her grandchildren in Cape Town, certainly not running a mayoral campaign in Johannesburg and gyrating in the country’s most famous black township.
Over this past weekend that’s exactly where the cameras found her; showing up armed with the soundtrack and theatrics of a shisanyama groove. In with Brenda Fassie and the-both-thumbs-up township ‘sharp sharp.’ Out with Bok van Blerk, and absolutely no mention about those tweets or Critical Race Theory.
This – hallowed ground of black resistance from early migrant labour to the 1976 students’ uprising – is where you come if you hope to woe the kind of votes that go a long way. The ones that count and inject your cause with home brewed street credit out in the shebeen, factory floor or taxi rank.
Sandton or Parktown may be the ‘Afristocrat’s’ playground of choice, but the local government elections are about a year or so away, and the fodder you need most is to be found right there at the birthplace of some of the best African jazz and in iconic Vilakazi Street.
And, for all their sins, both Zille and Cyril Ramaphosa have figured out at least as much. Indeed, it is there, last Monday, that the same Ramaphosa who was once willing to fall on his sword before he’d ever harm his party by telling the public that public money had been used to advance certain CR17 campaigns stared the ANC’s local government comrades square in the eye and basically told them that they were screwing up, and that the DA was giving a far better account of itself where it governed — this just a few days before the DA Johannesburg mayoral bonanza.
As much as many would’ve upped a finger at the president for living up to the accusations of him being a stooge to capital, others would’ve ruefully accepted that the days of assured victory are now truly and well behind them.
For the DA, Ramaphosa’s statements were about as close as they’re ever going to get to an endorsement from their arch-rival. In sport, this would be like the psychological advantage that the guy who turns his eye away gives to his opponent. The mental victory before the fight.
Among Ramaphosa’s heartfelt freebies: ‘Those municipalities that do best are not ANC-controlled municipalities … they are often DA-controlled municipalities … We want to go and see what Cape Town is doing …’ then adding how the DA is ‘always at the top’ of the local government rankings.
Hardly surprising then that an exuberant Zille found her voice and spunk, lapping up the ululation and dancing like she’d grown up amongst multiracial musos in Yeoville. Gone was the hard-line, combative figure, replaced with a more cheerful persona, almost as if the self-styled ‘daughter of Johannesburg’ had not only got her groove back but that could almost already taste victory.
Understandably, she didn’t waste any time taking full advantage of the president’s generosity. ‘President Ramaphosa this week,’ said Zille, ‘showed the boldness we have been waiting for by endorsing his main political opponent.’
And, for the 74-year-old gogo, what better way to ride out into Paternoster as the First Citizen when historians record this as the moment when South Africa started singing from an unlikely hymnal? Sounds far-fetched, I agree, but since 29 May 2024, utter disbelief is what awaits those of us who’d never thought such days would ever come.
But of course there are the examples of the 30-year curse that haunts African liberation governments, including those in our own Southern African Development Community. The ruling post-liberation parties of Botswana, Zambia and Mauritius have all been shown the door, and the ANC bled massive support last year when it dropped to 40.2% of the vote and found itself entering into the power-sharing arrangement known today as the GNU.
With the ever dwindling ANC support that stretches as far back as 2016, the general dilapidation, as well as water and power cuts facing the City of Johannesburg, the DA suddenly has more than a fighting chance. Dare we say, perhaps it could even pull off the worst upset since Western Cape 2009 or May 2024.
The City has been kept running by a series of coalitions that might have enriched a few connected hangers-on, bred syndicates and tenderpreneurs, but they haven’t really served its people or the City itself very well. Factor into this the constant council disagreements that often culminate in the chopping and changing of mayors, and even those leftists who’ve prioritised ideology over everything else are beginning to second-guess whether it really matters that the t-shirt is red or blue when the power has been cut off, and there’s no water in the taps.
After Ramaphosa’s ‘roll call,’ being the last-minute show stealers we’ve always known them to be, the ANC may well go back to the drawing board. By now, even they realise that people are no longer persuaded by the chants of ‘amandla‘, nor in fact, by the big bikes and loudhailers.
The change expected out there is more fundamental and long term. As the ‘cANCer’ of South Africa, they will need to subject themselves to intense chemotherapy so as to rid themselves of the diseases that have made the masses turn away from them.
Despite Ramaphosa’s unexpected concessions, he also gave the comrades ideas about where to start. Merit should be a priority, and could those who are stealing just stop it already? How long has that song been sung? And, supposing that they listen to the principal, is there enough time to convince the people that they genuinely have?
Featured Image: Helen Zille, the DA’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate, in Mofolo, Soweto. Source: Democratic Alliance Facebook page.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Phakamisa Mayaba’s website, eParkeni. Used with permission.