Helen Zille: How a Mayor Zille will rescue Jo’burg

The possibility of Democratic Alliance (DA) Federal Council Chairperson Helen Zille as the next Mayor of Johannesburg has the country talking. In this interview with BizNews, Zille says although she has not yet made up her mind, she is “tending in the direction of doing so”. If she were to become Mayor, she says, her “only objective will be to restore service delivery and functionality” to Joburg. “And then Joburg will fly. It's got everything going for it. It's got every potential going for it. And that's what it must get right. We've got to get Joburg. We've got to get eThekwini. We've got to get Tshwane…the metros in Gauteng are the next major frontier and South Africa will stand or fall by what we do with the metros in Gauteng.” As for how African National Congress (ANC) Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi might feel about the prospect of her as mayor, Zille says: “…he will pull out all the stops to stop me, no doubt about that. So will Herman Mashaba (ActionSA Leader). He's played the race card already.” Meanwhile, Zille stresses that she and her family are committed to staying in South Africa. “And for South Africa to work, Joburg's got to work. It's very simple. We can't have just the Western Cape working. We've got to have the whole of South Africa working. And that's why we put up really good candidates to be mayoral candidates in all the cities, all the cities where we've got a chance.”