Herman Mashaba Rejects DA Pressure Over Mayoral Picks in Johannesburg — Demands Full Respect

An opinion piece published Saturday, 14 November changed the temperature of Gauteng coalition talks overnight, as ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba declared publicly that no political force on earth would dictate his party’s negotiating choices following the 2026 local government elections.

Mashaba took direct aim at commentators, rival supporters and unnamed figures he accused of attempting to steer ActionSA toward predetermined arrangements. He objected specifically to Helen Zille standing as the DA’s preferred Johannesburg mayoral candidate and to Cilliers Brink retaining his Tshwane council seat, while throwing his weight behind incumbent Tshwane Mayor Nasiphi Moya. In a written proposal delivered to DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis on 7 November, Mashaba offered to withdraw from the Johannesburg mayoral contest provided Zille also stepped aside, freeing the DA to put forward a fresh face. He separately suggested Brink vacate his council position in exchange for ActionSA endorsing Moya’s continuation — though he indicated his organisation remained open to backing a DA candidate in Ekurhuleni.

The two men sat down on Thursday, 12 November, for what Mashaba characterised as frank and productive dialogue, yet Hill-Lewis’s team released no formal agreement afterward. ActionSA told its membership that independence remained the party’s absolute bottom line, and Mashaba reiterated that his leadership was not for sale or compromise regardless of outside pressure.

Mashaba revisited wounds stretching back to his 2019 resignation as Johannesburg mayor, the subsequent collapse of the multiparty arrangement between 2021 and 2023, and ActionSA’s break from the Multiparty Charter after the DA entered the ANC-led Government of National Unity in 2024. Each rupture, he argued, reinforced why his organisation had to chart its own course.

To anchor his governance argument, Mashaba pointed to a striking financial milestone: within 175 days of Moya taking office in October 2024, her administration transferred over R1 billion toward the city’s outstanding Eskom obligation — the first fully funded municipal budget Tshwane had managed in three consecutive years. That single figure gave Gauteng ratepayers something concrete to measure against years of rhetorical pledges.

With Johannesburg’s mayoral contest still unresolved and negotiations across three metros grinding forward, residents face an unsettling reality: the people managing their water, electricity and refuse collection may ultimately be chosen through backroom compromise rather than merit. Can ActionSA’s principled stance survive the mounting pressure, or will Gauteng’s most populous city once again wake up to a mayor nobody fully endorsed?

https://x.com/i/status/2121558228198654074

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