The DA has never had a better chance to break through in Gauteng. The ANC is struggling to defend its record in Johannesburg, where years of unstable coalitions and failing services have left residents desperate for a government that can make the city work again.
The November 4 local government elections will test whether the DA can turn the ANC’s decline into a credible campaign for the province in 2029.
That ambition is far from fanciful. The ANC’s share of the Gauteng provincial vote has fallen from 53.6% in 2014 to 50.2% in 2019 and 34.8% in 2024, according to Electoral Commission results. It holds 28 of the legislature’s 80 seats and depends on coalition partners to govern. The DA holds 22 seats on 27.4% of the vote.
The DA has made its former leader and Western Cape premier Helen Zille the face of its Johannesburg campaign. If she wins, the mayoralty would let the party show it can run a major city outside the Western Cape — and build momentum for Gauteng, possibly with federal chair Solly Msimanga as its candidate for premier.
If she fails, the DA must confront an uncomfortable question: what comes after Zille?
The party’s new federal leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis, remains mayor of Cape Town. Msimanga has experience in Gauteng; basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube has built a profile in Parliament. Yet none has shown the national recognition and broad appeal needed to lead a credible challenge in 2029.
Nor is there an obvious successor to carry the Johannesburg campaign if Zille retires from frontline politics.
Hill-Lewis has chosen to stay in Cape Town rather than join the national executive. That lets him demonstrate administrative competence. It also anchors him in the DA’s strongest province while his party sits in the government of national unity without its leader in cabinet.
If the DA wants to lead national government by 2029, its leader must become a national figure, capable of taking the fight to President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC. Another five years in Cape Town would postpone that work at precisely the moment the party needs to widen its appeal.
Springboard to competent government?
Polls suggest Johannesburg is within reach. An eNCA-MarkData survey published in October put the DA on 35% and the ANC on 21.8%, with the MK Party on 12.5%, the EFF on 11.9%, and ActionSA on 10.3%. A Social Research Foundation and The Common Sense survey, also released in October, put the DA on 36% and the ANC on 22%.
That makes the DA the clear frontrunner to emerge as the largest party. It does not guarantee the mayoralty. An outright majority in the 270-seat council requires 136 seats, and the polls suggest the DA will need partners.
ActionSA, the IFP, the Freedom Front Plus, the Patriotic Alliance, and smaller parties could prove decisive. So could the EFF and MK Party in a fragmented council. The DA’s history of unstable municipal alliances shows that winning office and keeping it are different challenges.
A Zille victory would give the party a platform to show that its promise of competent government can work in a city worn down by poor services and instability. Defeat would rob it of that springboard.
The DA is wrong to assume that anger with the ANC will translate into support for itself. Many voters remain unconvinced that its vision adequately addresses the need for economic transformation.
The ANC deserves to be punished for failing to translate political power into better lives for the majority. But rejecting the ANC does not mean embracing the DA.
For many Black voters, the ANC remains the main party that recognises the need to change the racial distribution of economic power.
The DA’s policy pitfalls
The DA’s opposition to aspects of the Black economic empowerment (BEE) framework is a case in point. The party argues that BEE has enriched politically connected elites without creating enough jobs. There is a legitimate debate about the policy’s failures.
But the failure of BEE is not proof that transformation is unnecessary. The Commission for Employment Equity’s latest annual report shows white employees still hold 57.1% of top management posts — about seven times their share of the economically active population.
Replacing race-based redress with a needs-based approach may appeal to voters who believe the ANC has used empowerment to reward its allies. But to voters who see race as a continuing determinant of access to economic power, the DA’s position risks looking less like a new route to transformation than a retreat from it.
The same problem arises in healthcare and education. The DA opposes the ANC’s National Health Insurance model, but millions depend on an overstretched public health system. They want to know how the party’s alternative would get them quality treatment, not simply why the government’s plan is wrong.
For parents whose children travel long distances because the closest school teaches in Afrikaans, the dispute over school governing bodies and language policy is not about institutional autonomy. It is about access — and the promise of non-racialism can ring hollow.
A Black voter leaving the ANC may recognise Zille’s record as an administrator and still ask why they should back a party whose positions on redress, schools, and healthcare appear to protect existing arrangements. The DA cannot rely indefinitely on the ANC’s failures.
Even Cape Town, the DA’s showcase, is not exempt. The city faces a severe housing backlog, sprawling informal settlements, and gang violence in poor communities. The DA must explain why so many residents remain shut out of the city’s prosperity.
Johannesburg needs a government that can fix basic services and its finances. But competence alone may not build the national coalition of voters it needs.
The DA may still grow without Johannesburg. But it will have lost a rare chance to show that its ambitions extend beyond the Western Cape — and that it can turn dissatisfaction with the ANC into a durable national movement.
That is why this is now or never for the DA.
