South Africa's opposition bets on 'daft' stunts to unseat ANC in Johannesburg

Democratic Alliance targets mayoral election in Africa's richest city in effort to present itself as the opposition-in-waiting

Helen Zille, South Africa's most famous white politician, has spared herself no embarrassment in a self-described "daft" campaign to unseat the African National Congress party from the mayoralty of Johannesburg.

Zille, 75, has snorkelled in a waterlogged pothole, abseiled down a building "hijacked" by criminals and sailed a dinghy down a flooded street, as she bids to highlight the city's collapsing infrastructure and shed her uncompromising image as South Africa's "Margaret Thatcher".

A win for her Democratic Alliance would make Zille the first white mayor of Johannesburg -- where about three-quarters of the population are Black -- since the end of apartheid. It would also be the most symbolic result in a sweep of local elections expected to reinforce the ANC's slow-motion collapse as an electoral force.

The DA has targeted the vote in Africa's richest city to present itself as the opposition-in-waiting to the ANC, which has ruled South Africa since apartheid fell in 1994 but has been weighed down by incompetence and graft scandals over the past 15 years.

"We are looking at this as a stepping stone to the 2029 national elections and a potential crossover of the main parties," said Nduduzo Langa, an analyst at consultancy Kruthum, though he said the DA surge in this election might not be as strong as some expected.

The ANC's national vote plunged from 58 per cent to 40 per cent in 2024, forcing it to go into a coalition with the DA, whose share was stuck in the low 20s, alongside eight smaller parties in an increasingly fractured political landscape.

Despite its reputation for better governance, the DA has struggled to win over Black voters. Many cannot bring themselves to back a predominantly white party that opposes affirmative action and espouses a free-market ideology in a country where many still regard socialism as the solution to historic wrongs.

One Black voter said she felt obliged to vote ANC -- the party of Nelson Mandela -- because her "ancestors were watching", but in church she prayed for a DA victory.

But in local elections, focused on issues such as water supply, potholed roads and policing, pollsters say there may be more willingness to vote for a party believed to be better at delivering key services. Many would-be ANC voters will simply stay at home.

The latest polls suggest the ANC could end up in second place or worse in six of the eight biggest cities, including Pretoria and Cape Town, which the DA has run since 2006, initially with Zille as mayor. That would turn the ANC into a "rural party", said Ferial Haffajee, a prominent journalist who covers Johannesburg for the Daily Maverick.

In Johannesburg, Zille's full-on campaign has contrasted with the lacklustre efforts of the ANC, which has not even named its prospective mayoral candidate, partly due to factional infighting. Recent polls show the DA ahead with between 30 and 36 per cent of the vote, while the ANC is on 22 to 27 per cent.

In Zille's latest antic, she was filmed spinning tight circles in a modified BMW, a township activity known as gusheshe. A fluent isiXhosa speaker, Zille has also performed as a leather-jacketed DJ in a Soweto nightclub and zip-lined across a sinkhole.

Haffajee said Zille's energy and chutzpah had largely hit home. "Some Black voters were like, 'This is patronising, creating a spectacle out of our lives'. But on the whole, there's been admiration for the sheer cheek of it."

The stakes in South Africa's commercial heartland are high. A report this month from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, titled "Joburglary", highlighted crooked tender procedures, collusion between officials and crime syndicates and extortion by municipal workers. Zille has compared the city's slide to the decline of ancient Rome.

But even if the DA wins the most votes in Johannesburg, it is not expected to gain an outright majority and may struggle to find the coalition partners needed to claim the mayoralty.

Several smaller parties that will probably be against her are expected to gain a significant share of the vote. Her policies are diametrically opposed to those of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters and she has fallen out personally with anti-immigrant candidate Herman Mashaba, a former Johannesburg mayor and businessman.

Zille would also find it difficult to work with the Johannesburg ANC, which hails from the "radical economic transformation" wing of the party.

"If she wins, they will gang up against her," said Samuel, a Black voter in Johannesburg who said he liked both Zille and Mashaba.

"The DA can get 40 per cent or more, but if they don't have partners, they can't govern," said Lisa Seftel, a leader of the Johannesburg Crisis Alliance. The worst outcome for the city, which has had 10 mayors in as many years, would be more unstable coalitions, she said. A DA-ANC coalition, which would mirror the national unity government, would be the most popular result with business, she added.