Zille says DA will take the "least bad" coalition deal, but not one propped up by the EFF

Helen Zille has left the door open to a coalition with the ANC in municipalities where the DA falls short of an outright majority, but ruled out any arrangement that keeps a minority council in power with the EFF’s support.

Speaking to the media at Emmarentia Primary School in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning, the DA’s Johannesburg candidate said the party still hopes voters hand it a clear mandate. If they do not, it will weigh its options. “If we don’t get a clear majority, and I still hope and believe we can get a clear majority, but if we don’t, we’ll look at the different options of coalitions and take the least bad option,” she said.

Sunday World reported her comments on 4 November.

The line against the EFF was firm. Zille said the DA would rather sit in opposition than lead a minority coalition that depends on the EFF to govern, and she was blunt about what a wide multi-party arrangement would mean in Johannesburg. “I promise you, if we have to run a nine-party coalition in the City of Johannesburg, we will go into opposition, because that is ungovernability defined,” she said. “You cannot do it in a nine-party coalition that is still a minority coalition that depends on your arch-rivals to govern.”

She said the two parties hold fundamentally different beliefs, describing the EFF as supporting a system in which the state controls the economy and society, against the DA’s view that people should be empowered to create opportunities for themselves.

The history between them is long. After the 2016 local elections the EFF did not enter a formal coalition but voted with the DA issue by issue, which put Herman Mashaba in the Johannesburg mayoral chain. The arrangement fractured in 2019 after the DA refused to back EFF demands for mayoral seats in hung councils such as Tshwane, and EFF leader Julius Malema declared the voting pact finished. Mashaba later resigned as mayor in protest at Zille’s election as DA federal chairperson.

Her openness to the ANC comes amid strain inside the government of national unity. ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said last month the party needed to reconsider the DA’s role in the GNU, after the DA mounted a legal challenge to the ANC’s candidate nominations. The dispute followed a Constitutional Court ruling in the ANC’s favour on the inclusion of its candidates on the ballot, and Mbalula argued the challenge raised questions about the DA’s commitment to the principles underpinning the GNU. ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa did not respond when asked about the possibility of working with the DA at Hyde Park High School, where he voted.

For Johannesburg residents, the coalition arithmetic is not abstract. Zille named access to safe water as her first priority if she becomes mayor, calling the shortages a major crisis and noting that some residents have been forced to buy water. “My first port of call is to organise resources to try and reduce the crisis,” she said.

Zille, who was born and raised in Johannesburg, said the DA had done everything it could during the campaign, and that the decision now rests with voters. “In the end, it’s voters, the voters must decide whether they want to rescue the city,” she said.