EFF's Mkhaliphi asks DA: are you the messiah for eThekwini?

EFF mayoral candidate Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi put the DA on the spot over its Cape Town record at an IOL town hall debate in eThekwini, asking whether the party intended to be “a messiah of sorts” for Durban when, in her account, communities in the Western Cape are still waiting for services.

The debate, reported by IOL on 2026-10-21, set the two parties against each other over who carries responsibility for eThekwini’s service delivery failures, with the November 4 local government elections now less than a fortnight away.

Mkhaliphi asked DA representative Alicia Kissoon why the party would deliver in eThekwini what she said it has not delivered in Cape Town, naming Dunoon, Khayelitsha and KwaNanga as places where residents are living badly. She then asked whether the DA was being selective about which communities it services, and whether its eThekwini promises were made to win votes.

“Are you saying that those people of Cape Town, especially the black majority, are not as important as the people of eThekwini? Or are you saying this just to get votes?” she said.

Kissoon did not accept the premise. She argued that the DA sits in opposition in the eThekwini coalition and holds no chairperson positions on the executive committee, which she said are held by the IFP, the EFF and the ANC. Those parties, she said, oversee key portfolios including infrastructure, transport, informal settlements and finance.

She described opposition as a job of holding the coalition accountable, including through the courts when the DA believes a decision is wrong.

Turning to the EFF’s own record, Kissoon said the party holds the informal settlements portfolio while eThekwini has more than 600 informal settlements. She challenged the EFF to show where it opposed municipal budgets in committee, arguing that the fight has to happen before a budget is passed rather than after.

Mkhaliphi answered on a different front, accusing the DA of having fought against the insourcing of municipal workers in the previous council. She said the DA’s position affects security guards and other workers who would be employed directly by the municipality, and asked whether they were expected to work until they die.

Both parties are contesting eThekwini in an election that will test the coalition arrangement running the metro. For voters in the city, the exchange put two competing questions on the table: whether the DA’s national record in Cape Town says anything about what it would do in Durban, and whether the EFF’s presence in the current coalition has changed anything for residents of the metro’s informal settlements.

The IOL report is the published account of the debate.