Mashaba, Zille: the egos have landed

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba speaks after his announcement of the party’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg in the upcoming Local Government Elections at Orlando Hall in Soweto, 21 February 2026. Picture: Nigel Sibanda/The Citizen Herman Mashaba and Helen Zille have a fewthings in common. The most important – especially for voters going to the local government polls later this year – is their boundless confidence, even arrogance, as well astheir conviction that they are God’s gift to politics.

Mashaba runs ActionSA as his own stokvel – as evidenced by the organisation’s yet-to-be-held elective conference and his making the decisions. Anyone denying that is simply naïve. Zille may not have the control over her organisation that Mashaba does, but she is, nevertheless, hugely influential.

And she has little tolerance for dissenting views. We’re not surprised that the analysts we spoke to for today’s lead story believe his narrative that he will be the next mayor of Joburg and that Zille will be easy meat for his campaign. Numbers don’t lie, though.

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In the 2024 national election, ActionSA received only 1.7% of the total votes cast, compared with the DA’s 21.8%. In Gauteng, it was a similar story: just over 4% for Action SA and more than 27% for the DA. Mashaba has alienated many white voters with his increasingly race-orientated approach, while the DA has lost right-wing supporters who believe it is too “socialist” and “woke” (to use Zille’s word).

But what Zille has on her side is the Gauteng service delivery crisis, gifted to her by the ANC-dominated councils. She and the DA have made the Western Cape and Cape Town run properly (albeit not for all). Mashaba has to prove that he can do the same for Joburg.

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