Describing the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidates as “firstly great South Africans”, leader John Steenhuisen on Monday 23 August said that he did not need to “redeploy corrupt and compromise people”.

The party announced its list of mayoral candidates for five of the country’s cities and metros. They are:

• Refiloe Nt’sekhe for Ekurhuleni;
• The current mayor of the Tshwane metro, Randall Williams for re-election;
• Dr Mpho Phalatse for the City of Johannesburg;
• Geordin Hill-Lewis for the City of Cape Town; and
• The current mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay Nqaba Bhanga for re-election.

Democratic Alliance (DA)  mayoral Candidates for upcoming local government elections, Randall Williams (left) and Refiloe Ntsekhe (right), with DA leader John Steenhuisen (middle). (Photo: Deon Ferreira)

Williams, who became mayor of Tshwane in November 2020 after the city was contentiously placed under administration by the Gauteng Provincial Government, said when he took over service delivery in Tshwane had effectively collapsed. He said he had given a commitment to stabilise the metro’s financial health and restore basic services. “We did this with a minority government,” he said. “We can do so much more with a majority government.”

Phalatse, who served as the mayoral committee member for health and social development in the city, is the party’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg. She said her plan is to make Johannesburg work again. “It has become the capital of service delivery backlogs,” she said. “I feel energised to hit the ground in this campaign,” she added. “We will rebuild Johannesburg to become a city of hope,” she said. Phalatse said she had the experience to translate plans into reality as big ideas need a government framework. “Residents don’t need meaningless promises,” she concluded in her acceptance remarks, again promising to get basic service delivery back on track.  “Let’s get Jozi working again,” she said.

When asked if she was daunted by the prospect of facing the likes of former DA mayor, now president of Action SA, Herman Mashaba, she said her focus will be on the residents of the city and not on her opponents. 

Bhanga, who is currently serving as the mayor of a coalition government in Nelson Mandela Bay said he was committed to improving the social inequalities in the metro “after more than two decades under the ANC government.” He vowed to address unemployment and poverty. He said it was his vision to return Nelson Mandela Bay to its former glory as the powerhouse of the Eastern Cape. 

He also vowed to continue clamping down on corruption in the metro. Over the weekend a number of voice notes surfaced claiming that Bhanga is a perpetrator of gender-based violence and is himself corrupt. He said that he was being blackmailed to reappoint some officials that had been removed from the municipality following investigations of corruption.

Bhanga said the voice notes came from a person he loved and someone he had tried to help in the past. 

“They are being used by those I have acted against,” he said. “But the results are coming. The Special Investigations Unit was here last week. I choose to take a side and not succumb to pressure,” he said. “I choose to act and to protect my soul from being stolen…I am proud of myself for refusing,” he said. “I know this is just the beginning. I was victimised but I stood strong.”

Nt’sekhe,  one of the party’s deputy federal chairpersons, said she was herself a resident and former councillor of Ekurhuleni, the metro where she is now the party’s mayoral candidate. Formerly the party’s constituency leader in Tembisa, she said there had been a complete collapse of service delivery in the metro including power and water outages, crumbling road infrastructure, “poverty and squalor” — all of which she described as the “hallmarks of an ANC government”.

“There is a solution,” she said. “It requires a leader that is competent.”

Currently serving as a member of Parliament, Geordin Hill-Lewis, was chosen to be the party’s candidate for the mayor of Cape Town. Hill-Lewis is a former chief-of-staff for Helen Zille, the current chairperson of the Democratic Alliance. “No matter where you live [in the city of Cape Town], in me will have an ally,” he said. He said the City of Cape Town is by far the best run in South Africa but was held back by the national government.

He added that the city must do “more than ever before.” 

Commenting on the voice notes doing the rounds about Bhanga, Steenhuizen said that if someone wants to take evidence to the authorities and bring it to the Democratic Alliance they will act.

He said in the past five years the party had learned some hard lessons in “Coalition School” and they will not be making coalitions for “coalitions’ sake” this time around.

“We will not walk out on our core values,” he said. 

Steenhuisen said they will not field a candidate for Ethekwini metro in Durban but will instead focus on a “ground-up” approach to winning as many wards as possible.

Referring to the City of Cape Town and the Midvaal Municipality, Steenhuisen said the party did not have to “hold up their opponents’ record.”

“We can focus on how good the Democratic Alliance is.”

He said much time had been invested to choose the mayoral candidates. Steenhuisen also challenged the ANC to publish the names of their mayoral candidates. DM/MC