Zille has ruled out the EFF and MK. Can she win Johannesburg without them?

Analysis · 15 September 2026

Helen Zille has given Johannesburg voters a promise they can hold her to: a DA administration under her leadership would exclude the EFF and MK as coalition partners.

Speaking at Daily Maverick’s The Gathering in Cape Town on 11 September, the DA’s mayoral candidate put the refusal plainly: “We won’t go into a coalition with MK, and we will not go into coalition with the EFF.”

Her preferred outcome is an outright majority. If that fails, however, the city does not automatically deliver her into the arms of the two parties she has rejected. Other partnerships, a minority administration or opposition remain possible. Each carries a different price.

For residents, that price eventually appears in decisions about water, electricity, refuse and the municipal budget. A campaign can win an argument on a stage. A city administration needs enough support to make decisions after the audience has gone home.

A target is not a majority

Zille’s campaign target is 490,000 voters backing the DA on both Johannesburg ballots. It is a mobilisation goal, rather than a fixed number that legally guarantees control of the council.

The distinction matters. A person and a ballot are different units. Voters in a metro cast separate ward and party ballots, and the final composition of the council depends on the electoral results and seat allocation. The size of Johannesburg’s population does not tell us how many people will register, participate or choose the DA.

The IEC’s 2021 declaration gives a useful starting point. The ANC won 91 seats, the DA 71 and ActionSA 44 in a 270-seat council. Those results left every party short of the 136 seats needed for an outright majority in that council.

They also show why the DA cannot treat dissatisfaction with the ANC as votes already in its own account. Other parties compete for the same disillusioned residents. A voter can want the ANC out and still choose someone other than Zille.

The polls tell different stories

Ipsos’s June–July survey, released on 4 September, put Johannesburg support at ANC 31%, DA 28%, ActionSA 14% and EFF 8%, among registered respondents expressing a party preference. Its national study involved 3,600 interviews in people’s homes and languages. Johannesburg was a smaller part of that sample; Ipsos gives the metro a maximum margin of error of about 5.57 percentage points.

The Social Research Foundation and The Common Sense produced a more favourable picture for the DA. Their July survey, reported by Daily Maverick, put the party on 42% in Johannesburg, the ANC on 18% and MK on 13%, using a turnout model of 53%.

These are different measurements, with different assumptions about who will vote. Neither is a declaration of the election result. Their publication dates also should not obscure that the interviews happened earlier in the campaign.

An average of 28% and 42% would look satisfyingly tidy. It would conceal the very uncertainty readers need to understand. Polling is especially sensitive to the gap between having a preference and actually turning up.

For Zille, turnout is therefore central to the strategy. The argument to a sympathetic resident is that liking the DA, complaining about City Hall and voting for it are three separate actions. Only the last puts councillors into office.

Who could still sit at the table?

Zille has left room to work with other parties depending on the result. ActionSA, the Patriotic Alliance, the IFP and the Freedom Front Plus were not included in her stated ban.

That does not mean any of them has agreed to a deal. Each would bring its own demands and electoral mandate. ActionSA’s presence in the polling makes it an obvious party to watch, but adding two percentages on paper cannot establish that their leaders can agree on a budget or a mayor.

A workable agreement would need to settle more than the distribution of positions. Who supports the budget? How are disputes resolved? What happens when one party objects to an appointment? How much of the agreement will residents be allowed to read?

Those are fair questions for the DA as well as for its rivals. A party that campaigns against unstable coalitions needs to explain how its own arrangement would withstand disagreement.

The promise survives a difficult result

A minority administration would need support from outside its core governing group. Opposition would mean accepting that another combination had assembled the necessary backing. Neither outcome would be the outright victory Zille wants.

There is also the possibility of changing her position later. That would require a political explanation to the people who relied on the original promise. It could not honestly be described as the only outcome arithmetic allowed.

Johannesburg voters now have something more useful than a vague pledge to work with everyone: two named exclusions, a clear ambition and a set of alternatives to examine. The election will establish how much support Zille has. What she does with a result short of a majority will establish how much her red lines mean.

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