Zille votes in Emmarentia on November 4, and the ward's dry taps and sewage are on the ballot with her

Helen Zille votes at Emmarentia Primary School on November 4, at the corner of Hill and Umgeni roads in Johannesburg’s Ward 88. Five years ago she cast her ballot at Pinelands High School in Cape Town. This time the DA’s mayoral candidate votes in a ward her party holds, among residents who spent February without water and September watching sewage move towards the Emmarentia Dam.

As Sunday World reported on 30 October, the polling station is confirmed by the Electoral Commission. Ward 88 covers Emmarentia, Northcliff, Franklin Roosevelt Park, Montgomery Park and the neighbourhoods around them, and the DA’s Nicolene Jonker is the sitting councillor.

What the ballot paper does not carry is the mayor. Johannesburg’s voters elect 270 councillors. Those councillors then decide who takes the chain, through a council vote and whatever negotiations precede it. Zille heads the DA’s proportional representation list for Johannesburg, which is her route into the new council rather than a direct route into the mayor’s office.

Her move to the city is recent and contested. Zille says she became an ordinary resident of Johannesburg in January. Her voter registration has been questioned by political opponents, and she has rejected the challenge, saying she spends almost all her time in Johannesburg. Independent confirmation of her registration and of her voting time was still outstanding at the time of Sunday World’s report.

The ward she votes in is not a marginal one on the last available numbers. In 2021 Jonker took 58% of valid ward votes. An independent candidate received 14.2%, ActionSA 13.3% and the ANC 6.4%. On the proportional representation ballot the DA took 58.5%, ActionSA 22.2% and the ANC 7.8%. Turnout was 55.5%, with 8,632 valid ward ballots across five voting districts. Boundary changes mean those figures cannot be read as a straight comparison with 2026.

What residents will be measuring the campaign against is closer to home. In February, prolonged water interruptions left households and businesses in Emmarentia scrambling for alternative supply. Some relied on tanks, tankers and neighbours. Resident Vaun Kelly complained about the municipality’s preparation and communication, saying officials had known about reservoir and pumping problems for years. Local business owner Leila Gassiep reported that her restaurant lost water on February 2, putting operations at risk. Jonker told the Northcliff Melville Times that Johannesburg Water officials struggled to explain why some households remained without water, and that they had promised to keep investigating until they found an answer.

In September sewage flowed towards the Emmarentia Dam, disrupting canoeing and raising pollution concerns. Johannesburg Water blamed tree roots obstructing a sewer line and said its teams cleared the blockage.

The failures sit under Johannesburg’s ANC-led multiparty administration, while Ward 88 itself has a DA councillor. For Zille they are the local version of the citywide infrastructure crisis she says she would tackle. Her campaign promises include protecting water and electricity revenue, replacing ageing pipes, repairing substations and restoring municipal services, and reserving at least 70% of water revenue for water services.

The services argument is not abstract in a city where water interruptions have become a recurring municipal problem. What February showed in Emmarentia is what it looks like at street level, households and restaurants without supply, and residents judging the response as much as the outage.

Zille’s ballot will be in the box when she leaves the school on November 4. Whether she becomes mayor is a question the new council answers, not the voters of Ward 88 on their own.