Gloves off in Johannesburg election debate

The leaders of the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP and ActionSA clashed in a fiery debate over corruption, coalition politics, immigration and service delivery at a City of Johannesburg leaders debate on Thursday.

The debate, co-hosted by Business Day, Sowetan and Sunday Times in partnership with Wits University, repeatedly returned to the question of whether Johannesburg’s recent history of unstable coalitions could be overcome by a single-party administration or a different coalition configuration.

Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic powerhouse, is likely to see a fierce fight for the control of the metro in the November local government elections on November 4.

The city contributes between 15% and 16.5% of national GDP, making it the single largest metropolitan contributor to the economy. But it has been hit hard by unemployment, immigration issues, poor infrastructure, rising levels of violent crime and vandalism and a lack of service delivery.

With just over a month before voters go to the polls, the debate highlighted how the Johannesburg contest is likely to be fought over those issues.

DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis conceded the city had become a “failed state” over the past decade under the governance of the ANC and his party.

He said the DA would seek an outright majority to govern the city this time round. He said it would then appoint a capable city manager to run it. Taking a jab at the ANC’s “cadre deployment” policy, he said the person heading an administration of about 180,000 employees needed to be selected based on competence rather than as a political deployment.

“If there is any person in South Africa who is capable of turning around something as broken as the City of Joburg, it is Helen,” Hill-Lewis said, referring to former DA leader Helen Zille.

Still, he conceded that coalitions were now an established feature of South African politics and urged parties to find common ground.

“The desire ... for corruption is incompatible with coalition governments,” he said.

The EFF and the DA were constantly at each other’s throats throughout the debate, highlighting the divergence of the two parties’ ideologies.

EFF leader Julius Malema took exception to Hill-Lewis’s characterisation of his party as a source of “chaos” in coalition governments.

He also rejected allegations that the party had sought tenders from former DA councillor Herman Mashaba during Mashaba’s tenure as Johannesburg mayor.

Mashaba is now the leader of ActionSA and is contesting for the Joburg mayorship.

The exchange escalated when Hill-Lewis raised the VBS Mutual Bank scandal and the parliamentary findings against former EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu.

Hill-Lewis also cited the instability in Ekurhuleni as an example of what he described as coalition chaos involving the EFF. Malema rejected this, saying the dispute had been political and that there had been no finding of financial misconduct against the EFF MMCs involved.

The two leaders also clashed over the state of the national economy. Hill-Lewis defended the GNU and said economic reforms were starting to put the economy in a better position. Malema disputed that and pointed to weak economic growth as evidence that the GNU should not be presented as a success.

The debate also exposed differences over immigration and ethnic mobilisation.

Malema said political mobilisation based on ethnicity or race was unsustainable and argued that South Africa’s constitutional order required the country to unite its population. He also rejected xenophobic vigilantism, saying ordinary citizens should not be responsible for determining whether someone was legally in the country.

IFP leader Velenkosini Hlabisa agreed that ethnic mobilisation was dangerous, but maintained that the IFP remained opposed to undocumented foreign nationals remaining in South Africa.

Hlabisa also announced that the IFP would host a roundtable conference on femicide on October 9 and called on other political parties to participate.

Mashaba said illegal immigration was one of several major issues facing Johannesburg, but he rejected the idea that his political identity was defined solely by the issue.

Mashaba, who served as Johannesburg mayor from 2016 to 2019, attacked the DA for corruption. He said when he was DA mayor, he had fired three DA MMCs for corruption, but the party had refused to remove them as councillors.

Mashaba also accused the DA of political manoeuvring against him during his tenure as mayor and raised questions about a tender awarded during his administration.

Hill-Lewis did not substantively engage the historical allegations, instead arguing that Mashaba’s campaign had become excessively focused on Zille and urging him to concentrate on issues affecting Johannesburg residents.

“I think in a few weeks, in literally five weeks, we sincerely hope that the residents of Joburg will give us an outright majority,” Hill-Lewis said.

ANC deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane used the debate to defend her party’s “renewal” project and its record in Johannesburg, while acknowledging the party’s previous shortcomings.

She said the city had been filling strategic vacancies, including bringing in engineers and other technical personnel, and was working with national government departments to strengthen revenue management.

Mokonyane said the ANC wanted revenue collected from water and electricity services to be ring-fenced so that it could be allocated to the entities responsible for providing those services. She also said the party wanted to strengthen Pikitup’s capacity, revive its Jozi@Work programme and restore an indigent policy.

She said youth employment and economic opportunities would be central to the ANC’s Johannesburg campaign, pointing to a recently adopted economic development strategy, youth enhancement programme and skills development facilitation programme.

Mokonyane said revenue collection in Johannesburg had increased to more than 90%. The city’s 2026/27 budget documents, however, show a revised revenue collection rate of 86%, down from 88.6%, with the city identifying illegal connections, billing inefficiencies and revenue leakages as continuing challenges.

Mokonyane also clashed with Hill-Lewis over housing and spatial inequality, particularly in Cape Town.

She questioned the DA’s approach to public land and access to housing for disadvantaged communities, while Hill-Lewis said national human settlements figures showed Cape Town had delivered more state-subsidised housing than any other metro over the previous five years.

Business Day