Helen Zille on Joburg, coalitions and the price of power

She said she hadn't exchanged a single word with the ANC about a post-election deal. Helen Zille then told Alec Hogg who she thought was talking to them. The DA's Johannesburg mayoral candidate took on Corné Mulder's claim of a backdoor ANC pact and compared Gayton McKenzie's Patriotic Alliance to the early 20th-century American Mafia. She also set out the coalition arithmetic she believes could shut the DA out of Joburg even at 40%. She described Joburg's budget as a fiscal fiction and gave a detailed account of how, in her telling, Julius Malema steered Herman Mashaba's mayoralty one decision at a time. She named the one condition any coalition partner would have to accept, and explained how the DA might still govern eThekwini if MK falls short of a majority.