Herman Mashaba at Daily Maverick’s The Gathering 2025. (Photo: David Harrison) 
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has not ruled out the possibility of returning as the party’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate, saying he would step in if the party failed to find someone with the right skills and experience.
ActionSA is searching for a young, competent and ethical leader to be its mayoral candidate, but Mashaba acknowledged that time is running out before the party’s deadline and announcement on Saturday, 21 February 2026.
“At the moment we are really looking at our own internal candidates. We don’t want to miss another Nasiphi Moya [Tshwane mayor] or another Xolani Khumalo [Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate]. But if we are unable to find someone of that calibre, then, reluctantly, I will do the job myself, even at my age, because of the love for my country,” he said. Mashaba is 66.
The mayoral race in the City of Gold is expected to be tightly contested, as residents express growing anger over persistent service delivery failures that have come to define life in the city.
The persistent problems include water outages, frequent electricity interruptions, deteriorating infrastructure, pothole-ridden roads, failing traffic systems, illegal dumping and rising crime.
The mayoral race will take place as the City’s inability to maintain basic services has further eroded public trust in local government, and as residents’ frustration grows.
The DA has already announced Helen Zille as its mayoral candidate.
Asked to name three factors behind Johannesburg’s decline, Mashaba said the scale of the crisis made that difficult.
“Everything in the city of Joburg is broken,” he said.
Mashaba was the city’s mayor under the DA between 2016 and 2019. During his tenure he focused extensively on job-creation initiatives, anti-corruption drives, attempts to improve basic services and infrastructure and efforts to direct resources towards poorer communities.
Mashaba is fully aware that the city is likely to once again be governed through a coalition arrangement.
His party planned to campaign vigorously for the elections. “We need to get Johannesburg voters to give us the mandate, because you don’t become a mayor just because you want to – it’s the people who vote you into power.”
If Mashaba assumed the role he would appoint 10 strong mayoral committee members who would “hit the ground running” alongside a competent city manager.
The party also intended to conduct a skills audit similar to the one Mashaba implemented in 2016:
“I got rid of ANC cadres who were in jobs unlawfully; unfortunately, some of them are back. So, I have to get rid of these people to ensure we put together a professional public service.”
Other key priorities were addressing the infrastructure backlog and collapsing the City’s entities and moving their functions to different portfolios under mayoral committee members.
“I will have to immediately do an audit of the infrastructure backlog and which areas so that we can attend to those issues…
“One of the things I need to do is to collapse all the City entities such as City Power, Joburg Water, etc. Those entities are a bureaucratic liability to the City of Joburg. I need to come up with a plan to collapse them,” Mashaba said.
He also wants to get rid of the entities’ boards which he said bring little to no value. Funds would then be redirected to service delivery.
Another priority was the inner-city rejuvenation plan, which had already been approved by the council during Mashaba’s tenure. “We need to immediately bring it back for implementation as a matter of urgency because housing is a real issue.”
As expected, Mashaba also plans to implement a programme to remove undocumented foreign nationals from the city – a subject on which political parties differ sharply. “We will send them to ANC and DA municipalities if they don’t want to get them out of the country,” he added.
Mashaba said ActionSA is realistic about its chances and does not expect to win an outright majority, but is aiming for a strong enough showing to make a real difference.
It was open to working with other political parties if it meant getting the city back on track, pointing to Tshwane as an example where ActionSA was leading and had started to stabilise the capital.
‘Snakes in politics’
He acknowledged that politics is full of “snakes” who could try to derail his plans, but made it clear he is not intimidated.
“In a village when we come across a snake, we don’t just kill it, we burn it... anyone who’s going to try and sabotage my efforts will be decisively dealt with,” he said.
ActionSA growth
Despite votes being split among similar parties, Mashaba believes ActionSA has still managed to grow its support base significantly.
In a by-election last week, held in Ward 2 (Rietvallei Ext 1), Mogale City, West Rand, the ANC secured 57% of the vote (down from 73%), ActionSA received 29%, the DA 7% (up from 6%), MK 6%, and the PAC less than 1% (unchanged), Daily Maverick reported.
Read more here: DA edges PA, ANC in Western Cape ward polls, ActionSA delivers more scares in Gauteng
Looking back on the 2021 local government elections, Mashaba said the party has learned from its mistakes and plans to correct them, citing previous association with the DA and contesting every municipality in the country, moves they will avoid this time around.
“The biggest mistake we made as a party was to allow being associated with the DA because the black voters demonstrated to us, instead of voting for us, they said lets rather for Jacob Zuma [MK party] because they were scared that ActionSA would give their votes to the DA . On the other hand we lost the white voters because they said ActionSA is working for the DA, lets rather vote for the DA and then Mashaba will bring the black vote and I ended up losing both votes.” DMActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has not ruled out the possibility of returning as the party’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate, saying he would step in if the party failed to find someone with the right skills and experience.
ActionSA is searching for a young, competent and ethical leader to be its mayoral candidate, but Mashaba acknowledged that time is running out before the party’s deadline and announcement on Saturday, 21 February 2026.
“At the moment we are really looking at our own internal candidates. We don’t want to miss another Nasiphi Moya [Tshwane mayor] or another Xolani Khumalo [Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate]. But if we are unable to find someone of that calibre, then, reluctantly, I will do the job myself, even at my age, because of the love for my country,” he said. Mashaba is 66.
The mayoral race in the City of Gold is expected to be tightly contested, as residents express growing anger over persistent service delivery failures that have come to define life in the city.
The persistent problems include water outages, frequent electricity interruptions, deteriorating infrastructure, pothole-ridden roads, failing traffic systems, illegal dumping and rising crime.
The mayoral race will take place as the City’s inability to maintain basic services has further eroded public trust in local government, and as residents’ frustration grows.
The DA has already announced Helen Zille as its mayoral candidate.
Asked to name three factors behind Johannesburg’s decline, Mashaba said the scale of the crisis made that difficult.
“Everything in the city of Joburg is broken,” he said.
Mashaba was the city’s mayor under the DA between 2016 and 2019. During his tenure he focused extensively on job-creation initiatives, anti-corruption drives, attempts to improve basic services and infrastructure and efforts to direct resources towards poorer communities.
Mashaba is fully aware that the city is likely to once again be governed through a coalition arrangement.
His party planned to campaign vigorously for the elections. “We need to get Johannesburg voters to give us the mandate, because you don’t become a mayor just because you want to – it’s the people who vote you into power.”
If Mashaba assumed the role he would appoint 10 strong mayoral committee members who would “hit the ground running” alongside a competent city manager.
The party also intended to conduct a skills audit similar to the one Mashaba implemented in 2016:
“I got rid of ANC cadres who were in jobs unlawfully; unfortunately, some of them are back. So, I have to get rid of these people to ensure we put together a professional public service.”
Other key priorities were addressing the infrastructure backlog and collapsing the City’s entities and moving their functions to different portfolios under mayoral committee members.
“I will have to immediately do an audit of the infrastructure backlog and which areas so that we can attend to those issues…
“One of the things I need to do is to collapse all the City entities such as City Power, Joburg Water, etc. Those entities are a bureaucratic liability to the City of Joburg. I need to come up with a plan to collapse them,” Mashaba said.
He also wants to get rid of the entities’ boards which he said bring little to no value. Funds would then be redirected to service delivery.
Another priority was the inner-city rejuvenation plan, which had already been approved by the council during Mashaba’s tenure. “We need to immediately bring it back for implementation as a matter of urgency because housing is a real issue.”
As expected, Mashaba also plans to implement a programme to remove undocumented foreign nationals from the city – a subject on which political parties differ sharply. “We will send them to ANC and DA municipalities if they don’t want to get them out of the country,” he added.
Mashaba said ActionSA is realistic about its chances and does not expect to win an outright majority, but is aiming for a strong enough showing to make a real difference.
It was open to working with other political parties if it meant getting the city back on track, pointing to Tshwane as an example where ActionSA was leading and had started to stabilise the capital.
‘Snakes in politics’
He acknowledged that politics is full of “snakes” who could try to derail his plans, but made it clear he is not intimidated.
“In a village when we come across a snake, we don’t just kill it, we burn it... anyone who’s going to try and sabotage my efforts will be decisively dealt with,” he said.
ActionSA growth
Despite votes being split among similar parties, Mashaba believes ActionSA has managed to grow its support base significantly.
In a by-election last week, held in Ward 2 (Rietvallei Ext 1), Mogale City, West Rand, the ANC secured 57% of the vote (down from 73%), ActionSA received 29%, the DA 7% (up from 6%), MK 6% and the PAC less than 1% (unchanged), Daily Maverick reported.
Read more: DA edges PA, ANC in Western Cape ward polls, ActionSA delivers more scares in Gauteng
Looking back on the 2021 local government elections, Mashaba said the party has learnt from its mistakes and plans to correct them, citing its previous association with the DA and contesting every municipality in the country – moves they will avoid this time.
“The biggest mistake we made as a party was to allow being associated with the DA because the black voters demonstrated to us, instead of voting for us. They said let’s rather for Jacob Zuma [MK party] because they were scared that ActionSA would give their votes to the DA. On the other hand, we lost the white voters because they said ActionSA is working for the DA, let’s rather vote for the DA and then Mashaba will bring the black vote and I ended up losing both votes.” DM