Helen Zille

Economy
As the Democratic Alliance's mayoral candidate, Helen Zille has pledged to attract 200,000 new jobs to Johannesburg by revitalizing the city's business districts and restoring investor confidence in reliable municipal services. She has argued that stabilizing water and electricity supply is a precondition for private investment, pointing to Cape Town's job creation record under DA governance as a template, and stating simply that "That is just the rules of economics."

Infrastructure
Zille has committed to ring-fencing revenue collected from water and electricity tariffs so that it is spent exclusively on maintaining those services, and to partnering with the private sector to help close an estimated R300-billion infrastructure backlog. On roads, she has pledged to repair potholes within 72 hours of being reported, restore 95% of traffic lights to working order, repaint road markings, and install modern monitoring technology at major intersections, warning that "Right now, drivers are sitting in chaos."

Security
Zille has promised a zero-tolerance approach to corruption and organized crime within the municipality, declaring "There will be no mercy for corruption syndicates." Her plan includes deploying honest metro police officers in every ward, firing and prosecuting corrupt officials, reclaiming hijacked buildings, preventing further land invasions, addressing illegal immigration, and protecting whistleblowers who expose wrongdoing.

Governance
To reform city administration, Zille has pledged to hire competent professionals on merit, reward good performance and punish poor performance, and overhaul the municipality's billing systems with more user-friendly, modern technology platforms for residents to resolve account disputes.