News24 | ELECTIONS 2026 | Helen Zille rules out forming an unwieldy coalition to run Joburg

• Helen Zille, the DA’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, rejects leading a nine-party coalition reliant on the EFF, preferring opposition if need be after the 4 November elections.
• Zille was critical of large coalitions, citing instability and the alleged ANC tactic of “buying off” smaller parties, and warned of governance challenges in Johannesburg.
• A recent poll shows the DA leading in Johannesburg at 36%, but short of a majority.
• For more political news, visit News24 politics.

Helen Zille, the DA’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, has declared that she has no intention of trying to run a nine-party coalition that depends on the EFF for its survival.

And if the DA “finds itself in that context after 4 November, it will go straight into opposition”, Zille told the Centre for Development and Enterprise’s (CDE) Ann Bernstein on Thursday.

Zille and Bernstein were in conversation ahead of the municipal election, dissecting “what is at stake in Joburg”.

Though Zille has previously commented on the DA’s approach to coalition talks after 4 November, this was the strongest indication yet that an unwieldy multi-party coalition was not an option for her party.

She told Bernstein that this was one of her key takeaways from running a seven-party coalition in the City of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009 and having to negotiate with the PAC and “surviving from council meeting to council meeting”.

“I regret that we didn’t work just hard enough to get an overall majority. We managed to win the province three years later, and that made it so much easier.

“We would have been able to do so much more if we’d had an overall majority, but keeping the seven parties happy so that they don’t vote for the opposition at the next council meeting is a full-time job,” Zille said.

She said they were able to hold the seven parties in the coalition together by getting the PAC to abstain on everything that really mattered, and added that no other large coalition has succeeded in South Africa yet.

“I have to tell you it was very, very difficult,” Zille said.

READ | Elections poll ’26: Joburg out of reach for Zille, exclusive News24/SABI poll shows

Her comments come just a week after a News24/SABI Strategy Group poll put Zille at 36% in the City of Johannesburg, ahead of the ANC at 27%, but short of the 50% threshold needed to govern outright.

On party support, the DA leads at 29% to the ANC’s 23%, a result that would mark roughly a 10-percentage-point decline for the ANC from its 2021 local-government showing.

The poll, conducted among 1 000 registered Johannesburg voters between 25 August and 7 September, points to a coalition government after the 4 November vote, rather than a single-party administration.

According to News24’s analysis, the ANC emerges as the strategically critical partner the DA would need to bridge the gap to a governing majority.

Johannesburg’s own post-2021 record bears out a serious warning.

The last local election produced a hung 270-seat council, and the city has since cycled through several mayors.

Between the no-confidence motions, a court-ordered reinstatement and a mayoral resignation, the revolving door has been linked to weakened administration and faltering service delivery.

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To tackle corruption in Joburg, Zille said she would ask President Cyril Ramaphosa to set up a commission of inquiry into corruption in the city.

“Only as the premier would I have the power to set up a commission of inquiry in certain circumstances, but as mayor, I haven’t got that power. I would really plead with the president to set up under a really respected judge who is completely above reproach to undertake a kind of Madlanga Commission, because we need to know what’s going on,” she said.

Zille reiterated her views on running a large coalition.

“The bigger a coalition, the more difficult it is to manage, and there is one thing that I want to say that has changed fundamentally since I ran that coalition in Cape Town in 2006, and it is this: the ANC’s culture has changed from then to now,” Zille said.

She said that back then, the ANC didn’t buy off other parties.

“They tried to persuade them, and they put massive pressure on them. They probably made promises to them, but they didn’t come with cash to buy them off. Now the ANC does that, and they did that in Joburg to bring down Mpho Phalatse,” Zille said.

She added that anyone who thinks coalitions are built on parties that follow principles and policies is dreaming.

READ MORE | Elections Poll ’26: Helen Zille leads a race nobody is winning outright

“The ANC knows very well how to launder money, especially through the Joburg Property Company, to be able to loot and buy smaller parties to join them. Not all smaller parties fall for it, but many do.

“And that is the reason why you can’t have a stable coalition with many partners, so if you have to, what sort of coalitions might be possible?”

Bernstein asked Zille whether there was a possibility of a reverse government of national unity, with the DA leading and the ANC in a secondary position, playing out in Johannesburg.

In response, Zille said this would make reform much more difficult.

“It’s going to make it 100 times more difficult to implement a turnaround strategy. That’s just a fact,” she said.

She said it’s also very difficult to say in advance how a coalition would be structured because one does not know what the election's outcome will be.

“I mean, we would put together a very different coalition if we got 45% compared to 40% and in fact, if we get 40%, although we will be the biggest party by a long shot, we won’t be big enough to get into government because the ANC wants the mayoralty of Joburg; we know that very well, and I’m sure that MK [Party], the EFF, Action SA, and the PA will give it to them, and all of those parties together might get over 50% before we can,” Zille said.

READ MORE | DA hails ‘real political shift’ as News24/SABI poll puts it ahead in 3 metros

She said that if the ANC gets 20% or 25%, and MKP gets 10%, the collective total would be 35%.

“Then Julius Malema gets 9%, that’s 44%, then the PA gets 2%, that’s another 46% and then you’ve got all these tiny parties that are in coalition with the ANC at provincial level who want to protect their jobs there, so they’ll make up the 50% and then you’ll have an ANC coalition – more of the same that Joburg has got now,” Zille said.

She added that the DA is very likely to emerge as the biggest party in Joburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane, “but the ANC will be loath to give the DA the mayoralty in all three”.

“And they will want to bargain, and the one they want most is Joburg. So if Joburg wants to prevent more of the same, which will inevitably lead to the city’s collapse, they need to give us an overall majority, and that will happen if 490 000 people come out and vote DA on both ballots, and we will be there, 136 seats out of 270,” Zille said.

Next week, the EDC will be in conversation with Joburg Mayor Dada Morero.