New Mayor of Cape Town Takes ANC by Storm

The ruling African National Congress has a nickname for Helen Zille, the new opposition mayor of Cape Town: “Godzille.”

The ANC had never lost power in a democratic election until Zille’s diverse coalition won municipal elections here in March. Since then, local ANC leaders have trumpeted their determination to get rid of the “monster” destroying the city.

Zille presides over a strange coalition: a mix of small parties from the far left and far right, or based on Muslim or Christian identity, all stitched together by the Democratic Alliance.

The Cape Town struggle has focused attention on the ruling party’s style and its reluctance to see the opposition govern.

The ANC, which fought to bring down apartheid -- and an entrenched ruling party -- is now such a dominant force that it rarely faces a political challenge. Even so, it has worked hard to weaken opposition forces by enticing members to defect.

“We in the ANC strenuously reject any calls that we should allow the Democratic Alliance to rule, and we become spectators of the circus in the city of Cape Town, whose principal actor has been aptly called Godzille,” James Ngculu, ANC provincial chairman, said in a recent speech.

But Zille defended the fragile coalition as a small beachhead of nonracial politics, saying the opposition victory was an important test for South African democracy and the ANC.

“It’s a very important milestone, because you can only have a consolidated democracy when the ruling party is prepared to lose power through the ballot box,” she said.

Poor ANC governance is also at issue, with the previous administration so chaotic that it spent only 60% of its capital budget last year. The former administration has also been accused of fraudulent tenders and contracts, with the new government currently running a series of forensic audits on city finances.

“For a party with an overwhelming majority at national, provincial and local government levels, the ANC shows alarming signs of intolerance,” said an editorial in the Financial Mail journal after the elections. “It seems to have an allergic reaction to the idea that another party could conceivably win the right to government, that the voters could ever deny it a majority at the ballot box.”

Zille, a former journalist and activist who campaigned against apartheid, voted against the ANC in the country’s first post-apartheid elections in 1994 because she thought it would win such a landslide that it would be bad for the new democracy. As the party of the liberation struggle, the ANC has dominated South African politics since 1994, still holding more than 70% of the vote.

“I really believe that democracy requires checks and balances. I didn’t want too much power to be concentrated in too few hands,” Zille said. “A two-thirds majority for one party is not good for any democracy. I am very pleased I am choosing to build the opposition in South Africa.”

The tough-minded Zille -- described by some analysts as abrasive -- has a difficult task holding together the diverse coalition with a razor-thin majority on the City Council. The only thread tying things together is the common goal of doing a better job than the ANC in delivering services to people -- a task made difficult by the impossibility of providing what many want: a house.

With a waiting list of 250,000 for housing in Cape Town and with thousands of poor rural blacks drawn to the city every year, the task continues to grow.

The ANC government has built more than a million houses in South Africa since it came to power in 1994, but the drift from rural areas to cities increases demand. For every shack dweller who moves to a house or block of land with water and power service, other newcomers drift into informal settlements.

Rough tin and wooden shacks extend as far as the eye can see in Khayelitsha township, on the outskirts of Cape Town, where as many as 500,000 of the city’s poorest and most disadvantaged live. The area’s river is a noxious, polluted canal, and in winter it overflows, flooding large areas. Shack fires spread quickly, incinerating families, and violence is rife.

Zille has been a regular visitor to the squatters’ camps for decades

With a voice at times so soft and quiet you must strain to hear it, she has an underlying toughness and a willingness to take political risks.

At a recent meeting in Khayelitsha, Zille stood up to explain to residents that they would not be able to move out of their shacks to serviced blocks for at least two years because people from other areas had been waiting longer.

Then a group of bureaucrats dealt another blow: Some people would have to lose their shacks to make way for toilets.

It was not a popular message. Representatives, including some ANC councilors, stood up and bitterly complained.

“Look, I know I’m not telling you what you want to hear. If I was telling you what you want to hear I’d be lying to you,” Zille said bluntly. “I can’t tell you we can make a dramatic improvement in a short time because it’s not true.... We can’t lie to you.”

At a similar meeting recently, Zille had to flee after ANC activists threw chairs at her. And she had to cancel another Khayelitsha visit after police warned that striking security guards were planning to attack her.

Zille said the country had to get rid of the idea that the government would buy houses for those who didn’t have them. She was inspired after talking to a woman who didn’t want a handout -- just a leg up.

“I met a woman who said, ‘I have been living in someone’s backyard for 30 years. I’m not asking for someone to buy me a house. I’m asking you to give me the opportunity to build my own house,’ ” said Zille. She said many of the poor could build themselves, if they were given serviced blocks.

Some analysts bemoan the lack of stability in the city’s administration, with frequent changes of the party in power, each purging unwanted bureaucrats, moving in its own people.

Ngculu, the ANC provincial leader, said in an interview that the name Godzille referred to a creature that was “quite vicious,” yet extinct.

“Whatever she’s trying, she’ll never succeed.”

He said the ANC was looking forward to a “floor-crossing” period in a year -- a time when powerful parties in a position to bestow favors and positions have the opportunity to persuade candidates in opponents’ parties to defect. At that point, he said, Zille and the coalition will become extinct.