DA forced to look for a black face to fight for mayorship of Ekurhuleni

Party searches for black candidate for Ekurhuleni race

- By Queenin Masuabi

Helen Zille during the official announcement of the Johannesburg mayoral candidate for the DA at Eyethu Shopping Centre.

(/Gallo Images)

The DA’s decision to pick Helen Zille as its Joburg mayoral candidate has forced it to abandon its “merit” stance, and it is now looking for an affirmative action candidate to take the reins in Ekurhuleni.

Sunday World can reveal that, of all the candidates the party interviewed for the Ekurhuleni mayoral chain, Mike Waters scored the most points, but the blue party leadership overlooked him.

This is because fielding an all-white team for the troika of metros - Zille for Johannesburg, Cilliers Brink for Tshwane and Waters for Ekurhuleniwas going to lend credence to the narrative that it is a white party.

Zille has emerged as the party spoiler because expectations were for Brink to return as mayor of Tshwane following his humiliating removal last year after a public fallout between his party and coalition partner ActionSA.

Waters is now poised to become the sacrificial lamb to save the party from a racial politics nightmare, but that will also leave the door wide open to criticism that the party’s merit mantra can be jettisoned at the altar of expediency.

"That was the issue; the DA realised it would face backlash if it didn’t have at least one black candidate in Gauteng,” a senior party member said.