The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille, has hit back at the narrative that her party prioritises middle-class interests over the needs of the marginalised.
In a recent interview on Salaamedia, Zille positioned the DA as the most promising for economic upliftment. “We’re the one party that attracts voters from every part of the political spectrum and indeed we are the very best party for the poor. All the official statistics say that where the DA governs, the poor are better off,” she stated.
As municipal elections approach, Johannesburg has become the primary battleground. The city is currently grappling with chronic water shortages, frequent electricity outages, decaying infrastructure and rampant poverty.
The DA is betting on Zille’s track record as the former Mayor of Cape Town and Premier of the Western Cape to convince voters she can reverse the city’s decline. However, the party continues to face scrutiny over the living conditions in Cape Town’s most impoverished and marginalised areas.
Zille dismissed claims that the DA neglects the poor, citing job creation as a major metric of success. She drew a sharp contrast between the economic trajectories of Cape Town and Johannesburg:
“In Cape Town, in the last six or seven years 400,000 new jobs have been created. In Johannesburg, they have lost 140,000 jobs. In Cape Town, jobs grow; in Jo’burg, jobs shrink. Even the last quarterly labour force survey showed that. Cape Town was up 69,000; Jo’burg was down 49,000.”
“Where the ANC governs, they can have a lot of rhetoric about serving the poor, but they do the dead opposite. They are corrupt, they steal the money, they don’t provide services for the poor, businesses flee where the ANC governs, people lose their jobs and people get poorer and poorer. The opposite happens where the DA governs. We govern well, people have confidence in the future of that place, they invest their money, they create jobs and they grow the economy and the poor get better off.”
Beyond employment, Zille argued that the DA’s governance model outperforms the ANC in service delivery and social support. She claimed that Cape Town’s output in low-cost housing and infrastructure investment surpasses that of Gauteng’s major metros combined.
“Which of the metros do you think provided most housing for the poor? Of course, Cape Town did. Under the DA. Cape Town provided more housing for the poor than Jo’burg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni put together,” Zille asserted.
“Cape Town’s also investing far more in infrastructure for poor communities so they can live a dignified and decent life. Where the DA governs, we also have much more generous cross-subsidisation package to deliver free basic services.”
The DA candidate highlighted a significant shift in the Absolute Poverty Index, noting that Cape Town’s rate dropped from 33% under its erstwhile ANC government to 19% today.
Zille concluded that these figures serve as empirical evidence of the party’s impact: “Far fewer people live in absolute poverty in Cape Town. Far fewer than in Jo’burg. That is the proof of DA government. We govern better for the poor.”
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Image credit: DA
