”Now that I’m in it, it’s not nearly so daunting,” says Cape Town mayor Helen Zille of the job she accepted with trepidation six months ago.
Zille is perched on a couch in the lounge adjoining her sixth-floor Civic Centre office in the central city.
Outside, a grey cloud licks at Table Mountain and a south-easterly wind churns up debris, symbolising her turbulent early months as mayor of the only metro run by a multiparty coalition, with the African National Congress and Independent Democrats in opposition.
She has ultimate responsibility for one of South Africa’s most complex regions. Senior communist Jeremy Cronin wrote, in the essay collection A City Imagined: ”Cape Town … is not generally very well liked by many of the new political and professional elite in our country.”
It is seen as politically unreliable, Cronin remarked, pointing to ”the smugness of its leafy suburbs, secure in the knowledge that the property market will continue to regulate what apartheid administratively held asunder. There is a history of divide and rule.”
But Zille and her coalition partners may be breaking new ground. Initially dubbed ”the revenge of the middle classes” and ”the return of the bossy white people”, the seven-party DA-led coalition, with a delicate majority of only two seats, has survived at least four attempts to topple it.
University of Cape Town political analyst Zwelethu Jolobe commented that the coalition had brought political stability to the region for the first time in years.
”Usually coalition governments with so many members don’t last long. It’s been a relief that they’ve found ways of stabilising a metro that has had three mayors in three years and which faced major early challenges,” Jolobe said.
The ”early challenges” were the battle over the contract of former city manager Wallace Mgoqi, extended in the twilight of the ANC city government, and the surfacing of two fraudulent letters apparently ordering the suspension of two Africa Muslim Party members of the alliance.
Simon Grindrod, ID caucus leader, said Zille still needed a ”more solid platform from which to perform”. If the DA had chosen an executive committee system, rather than an executive mayor, ”the three big parties would have governed together with her”.
Jolobe said Zille’s personality and ”tough, no-nonsense” leadership style had played a significant role in cementing the alliance. Her government could serve as a model for other regions, he added.
Idasa political researcher Jonathan Faull also attributed the effectiveness of the coalition to Zille’s political management. ”What looked like a textbook situation for deadlock and horse-trading, with every decision being blocked, has been used effectively,” Faull said.
Opening up council meetings had attracted more media coverage and given the council a platform to project itself as new-look, clean and effective. The open policy had won favour even with cynical Capetonians.
The coalition has taken much flak from the local ANC for wasting ratepayer’s money on forensic audits of contracts awarded by Mgoqi and former mayor Nomainda Mfeketo. No one had yet been charged, remarked ANC deputy provincial secretary Max Ozinsky.
But this week the audits may have drawn first blood, in the form of an ”explosive” report on the multimillion-rand Jewellery City contract awarded in a closed tender to Johannesburg consultant Thabo Mokwena’s TOM Consulting.
Although the work was initially expected to cost R6,6-million, Mgoqi allegedly approved additional payments of R4,3-million between the March 1 municipal elections and March 15, when Zille was inaugurated.
At least two people have been implicated, one known locally as ”Mr Ten Percent”, the other a prominent official known to the Mail & Guardian. A city announcement is imminent.
Under the new government, tendering has been opened to the public in a bid to prevent irregularities and patronage.
Zille argues that Cape Town provides hard evidence that South Africa’s democracy is working. ”There is a realisation that if democracy is to work, it is essential to be able to have peaceful changes of government.
”For a long time we did not know if that was the case. But now, despite attempts to extend Cape Town’s boundaries [to include Paarl, Stellenbosch and the Cape Winelands], I think the ANC has by and large accepted that they did lose.
”If I were Thabo Mbeki, travelling in the world where people asked about democracy in South Africa, I would point to Cape Town as a healthy example and say: ‘The ANC was beaten there and went into opposition.’”
Sixty-two percent of Capetonians voted for opposition parties in the March 1 municipal election.
Zille added that the coalition was not a ”getting together” of the parties ”because that would make no sense ideologically”.
”We are all very ideologically diverse, but what makes it easy at a local government level is that we don’t have to focus on foreign policy or broad economic issues. We have to get on with the real role of the state, which is service delivery.
”We have all been very truthful with each other and can argue about what works and what doesn’t.”
One of Zille’s fears, that council staff would obstruct the new government, had proved to be unfounded.
”I am surrounded by people with real capacity; there are mayoral committee members of superb quality and excellent officials, even ANC-aligned, who are working together and really trying to make this succeed.”
Speaker Dirk Smit of the Freedom Front Plus, a councillor since 1977, was enthusiastic about the coalition.
”I really feel it’s the beginning of a new era which could spill over to provincial, even national government. The coalition is not only working in Cape Town but also in other municipalities where the ANC is governing with the ID or DA. The point is we all agree on the vision — it is about service delivery.”
Elizabeth Thompson, United Independent Front leader and Mayco member for public transport, roads and storm water, said that from the outset ”there has been a support structure within the parties that strengthened the coalition. The coalition offers the city an opportunity to respect different cultures, religions, political affiliations and, above all, transparent decision-making.”
There have been three significant turning points in the coalition’s fortunes. The first was the passing of the city’s R17,2-billion budget on May 31. The ”pro-poor” integrated development plan, largely framed by the former ANC administration, was unanimously adopted.
The second milestone was Achmat Ebrahim’s appointment as the city manager. Ebrahim, who has worked for the council for 27 years and was part of former mayor Mfeketo’s ”Ikwezi” management team, is seen as bringing stability and continuity.
Then the DA victory in the June 7 by-election in Tafelsig gave the coalition a much-needed extra seat, bringing its numbers to 106 in the 210-seat chamber. DA candidate Sheval Arendse, a defector from the ID, garnered a healthy 67,9% of the vote.
It is well known that Zille and the Western Cape’s ANC Premier, Ebrahim Rasool, respect and even like each other. But Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Erenreich insists intergovernmental co-operation, especially over housing, transport and policing, needs to improve.
Said Zille: ”We get on well [with Rasool]. On the whole, intergovernmental relations are very good. All of us feel free to pick up the phone and call our counterparts. Things have stabilised a great deal.”
She said that while negotiations with the province over a single transport authority were going well, community safety remained an area of deep concern.
Zille and Rasool did, however, clash publicly on the hosting of the Fifa World Cup semifinal in Cape Town in 2010. The mayor initially refused to commit the city to the building of a R4,3-billion stadium in Green Point, but after conducting its own feasibility study, rallied behind the province.
Zille said the issues that still kept her awake at night were high rates of poverty and joblessness and the 400 000 people on the housing waiting list.
”We are facing four to five land invasions a week. We have to free up land much quicker than we are, and without a driving political will things can get stalled.” She has ordered a ”red tape audit” to clear impediments to land release.
Another headache is the approximately R400-billion owed in rates and service charge arrears — but the city has enjoyed some success in persuading high-profile defaulters, including the Airports Company of South Africa and the provincial government, to cough up.
A recent experiment in the collection of outstanding debts on around 400 properties had yielded ”amazing” returns, and would be widened.
Zille said she felt everything she had done in her life had prepared her for the mayor’s job.
”My activist work all the years, understanding the complexities of liberation politics, all the work I did as MEC for education, in opposition, in government and most particularly, my work as a journalist — it’s all helped.”
Talk to the people of Cape Town and generally even the most die-hard supporters of other political parties, who did not vote for the DA, think she is doing a good job.
Although at six months ”the pregnancy only just starts to show”, as Zille jokingly remarked, already results are tangible and have, in fact, been taken for granted.
This year, despite heavy rains, not a single informal settlement was flooded as the city was able to clean out storm water drains long before the winter rainy season.