Someone recently made the remark that “this election in Joburg will be the first time middle and upper class black South Africans will have to choose between their township and their suburb.” Could it be that voting for the DA and in particular Helen Zille is recognition of service delivery in the suburb absent service delivery for those locked out economically in Johannesburg?
It is important to premise that, by no means, is the current situation faced in Joburg a functional one. Potholes riddle the street, water is inconsistent and, in some communities, non-existent as taps run dry and electricity still remains inconsistent and reduced in low income areas. The infrastructure of Johannesburg is broken, and the lack of maintenance is beginning to become more apparent. So, apparently, it is part of Zille’s campaign.
Zille’s campaign on social media has been nothing but an embarrassment for the citizens and leaders of Johannesburg. Parachuted in from the Western Cape to swim in our potholes and get laughs and cheers online. It depicts both the political failure in Johannesburg but also the citizens’ inability to take action and chart another course. Riding through the city on a quadbike as if the city is the wild jungle that needs to be fixed. It shows nothing of humility and willingness to take the problems head-on but rather an amplification of the sore underbelly which has been the reality of millions of people, Johannesburg’s reality. But it speaks of a louder and bigger promise, one of delivery, entrusted in track record.
As mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009, Zille claimed to be the catalyst and the embodiment of “service delivery,” winning the election and turning Cape Town around. However, though bringing economic growth to the city, “In 2006/07, the R17.2 billion budget emphasised growth, but affluent areas received faster upgrades. Ndifuna Ukwazi, a social justice organisation focused on land and housing rights, criticised the lack of affordable housing on committed sites like Salt River Market, identified in 2008 but undeveloped 15 years later. While the DA claimed 75% pro-poor spending, actual allocations skewed towards suburbs, exacerbating a two-tiered city.”
Furthermore, Cape Town, a year later, even while Helen Zille was the premier of the Western Cape, continues to be riddled with concerns of spatial apartheid. Maintain and underdeveloping areas that are not filled with affluent and white South Africans. “Cape Town’s racial and income distribution, and historically disproportionate development have created groups of people who live together, but apart. The city admitted as much and the mammoth task of breaking down the barriers in the bid document it submitted to clinch the World Design Capital 2014 honour. These enclaves are physical – separating black Gugulethu from coloured Mitchell’s Plain from white Clifton – and mental too, where, often subconsciously, residents limit deep and meaningful social interaction to those within their racial group and hold unchallenged preconceptions of what characteristics define the other.” There is clear separation of the world that is propped and enforced by the government that has governed there since Helen Zille.
On the other end, there are Helen Zille’s roots. Her importance and prominence in uncovering police brutality was the cause of Steve Biko’s murder and not natural causes while being a correspondent at the Rand Mail. Along with her work in the 1980s, “she was involved in NGOs and was a member of several anti-apartheid organisations such as the Black Sash, the Open Society Foundation and the Independent Media Diversity Trust. During this time, Zille was also the press officer for the University of Cape Town”. Zille can claim that she is progressive and was an important figure in bringing justice to South Africa.
However, as her politics progressed, that line clearly began to blur upon her remarks when she remarked in 2017, “For those claiming legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water.” She showed no progressive ideals are rather seemed to reinforce a very conservative stance. A world in which people of colour ought to be grateful for the “innovations” of their oppressor. Sadly, that thinking may appear in Johannesburg.
The attempt in Johannesburg is not to make resources run better collectively but to privatise resources and provide them for the select few who can afford. It will be an attempt to separate race from class. To blame not the colour of one’s skin but simply their opportunity and access to resources based on historical ties that benefitted black and white people alike. It’s an attempt to excuse the exclusion of one society for the function of your own. It is one where the problems that plague Joburg remain the reality for the most average lay person who is from Johannesburg.
It remains that the person is denied health care and access to private health care both because the ANC is too ambitious and unable to financially fulfill its plan. But also simultaneously because the DA takes the ANC to court to contest NHI, which would increase access to healthcare. It is a world where ignorance is sold as a solution to the problem rather than resolving the problem for what it is.
As the Daily Maverick article pointed out in 2012, “Unlike Johannesburg, for example, where black wealth is not a rarity, in classist Cape Town, white is money and black is poverty. In classist Cape Town, white moves about unquestioned and being black means retailers can say without shame that you cannot afford their merchandise and kick you out of their store.” There is a diversity that exists here that may make it hard to repeat what has been done in Cape Town.
There is absolutely no denying that Cape Town is function significantly better than Johannesburg. But the question has to be asked: how many schools have been built to improve education, why has there been constant delay and failure in affordable housing and why has the city been sold off to people not in need of long-term stay?
In Cape Town, “despite ample public land available for affordable housing—enough to address backlogs and desegregate the city—transparency and utilisation remained inadequate under DA governance. The map, based on data from 2018–2022 but reflective of long-standing issues, criticises the lack of coordinated use of vacant public land, perpetuating spatial apartheid.”
Furthermore, looking at the housing market and the impact of Airbnb, The Guardian reporting as of March states “In the last five years, property prices have risen 31%, according to official data. That was double the rise across South Africa’s seven other metropolitan municipalities. Rents grew 5-7% last year, also above the national average, according to The Africanvestor, a property research firm.” and “More than 400,000 were on the waiting list for social housing in September 2024, according to the most recent city government data, while 18.8% of residents lived in informal housing.” Cape functionality has been of no benefit to the residents who live there everyday. More could be said about homelessness in the city but that deserves its own discussion.
So, in reality, when people vote for service delivery in this coming election, when they vote for functionality, they have to ask the deeper question about where it does not function or maybe not. Maybe it will be at this moment that people choose their suburb and do away with the umbilical cord which is their township. Maybe Kendrick Lamar was wrong; we are not all institutionalized.