‘As a general rule, I am loath to give any attention to the leader of a political party that could not muster even half a percent of support in the 2024 general election.’
Thus begins Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille’s brutal, tongue-in-cheek rebuttal to an earlier critique penned by Songezo Zibi in Daily Maverick just over a week ago.
And if that brickbat failed to drive the message home for the leader of Rise Mzansi, what followed later was Zille practically mopping the floor with the former Business Day editor: ‘You would think, given that your richly financed campaign delivered just 0.4% of the vote, you’d take some time to introspect, rather than throwing slurs at people from other parties who won the hearts and minds of more than 50 voters to each one of yours.’
Drenched in sarcasm, brisk tutorials in politics and unbridled viciousness, if this was a slug fest, Zille might have passed off as a 1980’s Mike Tyson. Surgical hooks and uppercuts, head relentlessly bobbing as Mike would weave out of the opponent’s swings without losing momentum so that when he connected with a sweet spot, it was usually lights out for the other guy. Often before the match had barely begun.
Quintessential Zille. Whether in dealings with political rivals, online trolls, or for that matter her own colleagues, nothing but the jugular will do. The likes of the well-spoken Lindiwe Mazibuko, once the DA’s parliamentary leader and a protégé to Zille, will likely warn against standing your ground with her. According to an extract by Former Democratic Alliance Federal Council Chairperson James Selfe, in an attempt to assert herself, Mazibuko would often find herself butting heads with Zille.
The disagreements would come to a head around the Amendments to the Employment Equity Act around 2013. ‘Owing to an inexperienced researcher, spokespersons who were fast asleep, and a caucus management that did not deal properly with legislation,’ the party had supported the amendments in the National Assembly. To Mazibuko, who was always insistent on diversifying the party, this was good news. On the other hand, Zille thought of ‘the bill as wrong and the fact that we had supported it was extremely bad for our electorate, who would be disadvantaged by it.’ In an attempt ‘to protect the broader interests of the party,’ Zille would go on to speak and write ‘very forthrightly on the subject.’ At the end of it all, Mazibuko resigned and the show went on as usual.
Yet for all her political acumen and literary prowess, Zille, like the great former heavyweight champion, might soon discover the fallibility of overstating one’s own abilities by 1) assuming said prowess automatically ingratiates you with the audience 2) underestimating the intangible qualities of the adversary before you, but most importantly 3) developing the sort of vanity that entirely ignores counsel from lesser voices.
With Mike, it was the effortless ease with which he did away with the very best of them that he started not only to neglect his training but also to assume that it was only for him that the crowd would always cheer the loudest. In the face of the ‘incompetent’ competition before her, theoretically Zille might have a bulk of the voting crowd’s backing or at least have a fair share of them thinking about voting for her.
Her party’s record of ‘clean’ governance in the Western Cape behind every speech, coupled by a coalition Council most famous for rapidly changing mayors, and an ANC blamed for looting The City of Gold to dust, her truculence would be quite understandable were it not for the ill-timed glib. It’s not her credentials or capability of making Jozi great again than whether she understands the number of votes she could lose just by opening her mouth or tweeting.
Take her recent viral interview with Anele Mdoda on the radio station 947. I hold no brief for the radio host but even I had to wonder whether – given the massive outcry when Zille first referred to people from the Eastern Cape flocking down to Cape Town as ‘refugees’ – it was wise to defend the word nearly fifteen years later. Wouldn’t simply putting her hands up and saying OK, maybe I was wrong, been the thing that warms some people up to her?
When Mdoda taps on an issue this writer has been harping on for some time: ‘As a black person who lives in Johannesburg, black people struggle to see you wanting to forward them,’ Zille simply asks as to when she, Mdoda, was appointed as a spokesperson for black people?
‘Twitter is not the voters roll’ Zille curtly says when told about some of the backlash she gets from Africans on the social media platform. She may well have a point. It’s not the voters roll, sure, but it is the joint where the vote she needs the most usually hangs out – the so-called clever black. Over the years she has wrestled with the best of them. Follow the dust her tweets have whipped up over the years and names as accomplished as the poet Lebo Mashile, the satirist Ndumiso Ngcobo, the songstress Simphiwe Dana, artist Lindiwe Suttle to mention but a few.
You could chalk it up to tone-deafness on the part of Zille. Maybe even a propensity to hold on to the familiar the older one gets. Or, it could be shock value or our mayoral candidate truly believes that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Or maybe our Tyson comparison doesn’t hold quite as true as it would if we’d said Floyd Mayweather Jr – the retired undeafeted champion whose flashy lifestyle had pundits convinced that nobody could ever beat Mayweather except Mayweather himself.
Could Zille be trundling down such a certain path? That’s doubtful. With tested men like Herman Mashaba as well as the newly-formed Unite for Change (ironically comprised of Songezo Zibi amongst others) ready to bring it on, it’s not going to be easy for anybody. Hence here is when you don’t look cocky, you prepare yourself for those moments when the people seem to be fobbing off your campaign efforts. For Mike Tyson that moment was Buster Douglas. For Helen Zille, it is Johannesburg, especially if the ‘gogo’ perhaps resists the urge to send out those late-night tweets.
FEATURED IMAGE: Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille. Source: Democratic Alliance Facebook page.