Dr Moya Set On Winning In Tshwane – But At What Cost?

But how does Moya intend to win, and what issues are at the centre of her campaign? More importantly, what cost is this campaign running at?

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

That Dr Nashiphi Moya, ActionSA’s mayor of Tshwane is set on winning the mayoralty in next year’s local government elections, is as obvious as anything.

By any standard, she is the most popular mayor in South Africa, and her PR team deserves credit for consistently marketing her as the closest thing to perfection in public service.

But how does Moya intend to win, and what issues are at the centre of her campaign? More importantly, what cost is this campaign running at?

The first issue that warrants attention is service delivery. Much of Moya’s focus is on delivering services to poor communities that she, ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba, and others have portrayed – and continue to portray – as being neglected by the previous DA-led administration, which, if you unpack the messaging, is “racist”, difficult, and indifferent to the plight of the poor. The aim, of course, is to position Moya and, by extension ActionSA, as an organisation that truly cares about the poor, while framing the DA as its opposite.

If social media is any indication, this strategy appears to be having some success, but time and electoral outcomes will reveal its true effectiveness. The problem with this strategy, which largely stems from Mashaba’s past grievances with the DA, is that it serves to justify ActionSA’s marriage of convenience with the ANC and the EFF – an arrangement that keeps the ANC in power.

While this marriage has remained stable for a year and a few months, there is no guarantee that it will continue for as long as it needs to exist. Its real cost lies not only in how it undermines ActionSA’s image as an alternative to the ANC, but also in how it prevents the emergence of a genuinely alternative ANC government in Tshwane that could inspire confidence in the idea of alternative governance at the national level.

The second issue is crime and lawlessness, for which Moya is opportunistically scapegoating “illegal immigrants” in the capital. Much like Mashaba did when he was the mayor of Johannesburg, she is presenting herself as a true patriotic leader who is restoring law and order by reclaiming the capital from “illegal immigrants”.

This pillar of her strategy explains why there have been – why there will continue to be – raids on certain buildings, crackdowns on informal traders, and the closure of brothels and other leisure establishments. The aim is to pander to public anti-immigrant sentiment, which casts these measures as being central to addressing crime and lawlessness.

Again, if social media is any indication, this pillar is popular, with many people praising Moya for fighting criminality and dismissing anyone raising concerns as a supporter of criminality. It is clearly boosting her campaign, whether her detractors like it or not.

Regarding the cost, there is no question about cracking down on criminal elements among immigrants who hijack buildings, for instance. However, what must not be blindly celebrated, without a robust and nuanced discussion on regulatory backlogs and barriers, is regulation itself, and the need to separate moral concerns from policy – is the weaponisation of metro police officers to engage in populist grandstanding.

Populist grandstanding is deeply problematic, as it will continue to deepen anti-immigrant sentiment not only in Tshwane but across the country, while frustrating attempts to push for constructive, solution-oriented discourse.

That said, it is worth clarifying that this piece does not naively assume that populist grandstanding can subject itself to reason or that it will somehow simply dissipate. Politics, at its core, revolves around appealing to people, saying what they want to hear, and doing what they want. So, expecting Moya to behave differently is unrealistic when the entire system of politics rewards political expediency.

What this piece is doing is showing how politics aligns itself with public sentiment and the costs that come with that.

Time will tell whether Moya’s campaign proves effective, but with some time left before the next local government elections, she is likely to continue this path of contrasting herself with the DA and pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment.

Ayanda Sakhile Zulu holds a BSocSci in Political Studies from the University of Pretoria and is an intern at the Free Market Foundation.