By Johnathan Paoli
The Democratic Alliance’s three Gauteng Metro’s mayoral candidates delivered a unified message at the party’s manifesto launch on Saturday: Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane cannot be rescued through political promises or coalition deals, but through competent government, a crackdown on corruption and the restoration of basic services.
Speaking during the unveiling of the party’s manifesto for the upcoming elections at the Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, Johannesburg, the city’s mayoral candidate Helen Zille, Ekurhuleni’s Khathutshelo Rasilingwane, and Tshwane’s Cilliers Brink represented the faces of a promised “fightback” against failing services, corruption and political instability.
Zille: ‘We can still save Joburg’
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Former DA leader and mayoral candidate Helen Zille acknowledged the scale of the problems facing South Africa’s economic hub, but insisted the city could still be turned around.
Zille said she had spent the past year visiting communities across Johannesburg, where she encountered “dry taps, dark streets, burst pipes and businesses struggling to save jobs”.
“Can Joburg still be fixed? The answer is: yes it can,” she said.
Her pitch rests heavily on professionalising the City of Johannesburg, with engineers, financial experts and other specialists placed in positions matching their expertise.
She also promised to redirect municipal spending towards maintenance and infrastructure, saying water and electricity revenue should be protected and reinvested into those services.
Zille’s strongest language was reserved for crime and corruption.
“This is not going to be another caretaker government. In fact, it is going to be no ordinary government at all. It will be a fighting government,” she said.
She warned criminal syndicates involved in the theft of municipal infrastructure that a DA administration would “take the fight” to them, alongside corrupt officials, contractors and political interests benefiting from the city’s dysfunction.
But Zille cautioned that Johannesburg could not be rebuilt overnight.
“This is a 5-year project. We cannot rebuild Joburg in a day. But every day we can rebuild Joburg. And we will,” she said.
Rasilingwane: ‘Clean up the crime scene’
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Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate Khathutshelo Rasilingwane placed public safety and corruption at the heart of his campaign, describing the metro as a “crime scene” created by the collapse of local government.
“There are crime scenes that police tape can cordon off, and then there are crime scenes so vast that they swallow an entire city. Ekurhuleni has become one of them,” she said.
Rasilingwane linked the deterioration of municipal services directly to rising insecurity, pointing to almost 300 EMPD vehicles reportedly being off the road because of poor maintenance and neglect.
Her proposed solution includes professionalising the EMPD, appointing personnel on merit rather than political connections, removing corrupt officials and ensuring law enforcement has adequate resources.
She also pledged greater protection for whistleblowers, invoking the case of Mpho Mafole, whom he said had “paid the ultimate price” after exposing alleged corruption.
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For Rasilingwane, however, policing alone would not solve Ekurhuleni’s problems.
“Crime thrives where government has abandoned people. Together, we’ll clean up the crime scene and restore trust. Together, we’ll get Ekurhuleni working again,” she said.
Brink: ‘Take back’ the capital
Tshwane’s former mayor and mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink adopted perhaps the most combative tone of the three, calling on voters to “take back” the capital city.
Brink blamed years of coalition instability and alleged corruption for Tshwane’s problems, attacking what he described as profiteering from water shortages, tenders and municipal dysfunction.
“The time has come for the South African people to take back their capital city,” he said.
His manifesto promises to fire corrupt officials and “tenderpreneurs” and replace them with professionals, while ring-fencing municipal income so that money raised for water, electricity and waste collection is spent on those services.
Brink also referred directly to allegations involving the City of Tshwane raised at the Madlanga Commission.
“We know each of those names mentioned at the Madlanga Commission in relation to the City of Tshwane. We understand what they have been doing. And we are coming for them,” he said.
He warned that reform would face resistance from those benefiting from the existing system, but argued a strong electoral mandate could overcome it.
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Across the three metros, the message was therefore strikingly similar: the DA is asking voters to choose professional administration over political patronage, functioning services over municipal decline and a tougher approach to corruption.
As DA Gauteng leadership rallied supporters at the launch, Federal Chairperson Solly Msimanga reinforced the broader electoral message, calling for voters to say “enough is enough” and focus on turning municipalities around and creating jobs.
For Zille, Rasilingwane and Brink, the November election is consequently being framed not merely as a contest for mayoral office, but as a referendum on whether the DA can persuade voters that its model of municipal government can restore confidence in Gauteng’s major cities.
