Alec Hogg (00:01) Well, he spent eighteen months as mayor. He was ousted in a coup and has spent the time thereafter, two years, sitting on the opposition benches, just to get to the point that he's at right now, which is the election and, in his hope, re-election as mayor of the City of Tshwane. Cilliers, good to have you with us this morning, and thanks for joining us. You must have a hectic schedule. But any regrets about the last two years?

Cilliers Brink (00:34) Absolutely not. I think it's Colin Eglin, one of the founding fathers of the Democratic Alliance and its predecessors, who said it's about the politics of the long haul. It might have been Zach de Beer. Anyway, one of the old Progs said it's about the politics of the long haul. And if there's one career that proves that point, it is Helen Zille's. So no, in the great tradition of the long haul, we fight on.

And it's incredibly important to get stability in these Gauteng metros. You don't achieve stability by magic wand. You achieve stability by effectiveness, by continuing, by making sure you bring out the vote and you get a stable government. And that's the project in which we are engaged.

Alec Hogg (01:26) I guess I should have phrased that question a little differently, because at the time when you were ejected as mayor, there were many who felt you'd go into national government and maybe come back for another go when the next election came around. But you didn't, and you sat on the opposition benches. It was a demotion from your perspective. What did you learn in those two years?

Cilliers Brink (01:53) Well, distance from the position of responsibility gives you a great deal of time to reflect on your years in office, what you did wrong, what you didn't do wrong. Henry Kissinger, I think, said that high office, as he put it, doesn't really teach you anything. By the time you get there, you apply what you already know. So if you're in the position where you're learning on the job in government, it's not ideal.

So yes, the time has given me some reflection. I think you sort of hinted at whether I regret not quitting Tshwane politics and going to Parliament. No, I don't. I think that the government of national unity and Parliament as it is now come with their own set of challenges. There's never a nirvana or a paradise, somewhere to run away to. You've got your set of responsibilities.

And Gauteng politics keeps on reminding us of the unresolved issues in South African politics. The province is run by a sort of rogue GNU, I think is what Frans Cronje has called it. And the city where I live and where I'm running for mayor is a reflection of that. So there's no use in politics in running away from difficult situations. What needs to be resolved in Gauteng will eventually need to be resolved in the country. And this is a very important and an exciting project to be engaged in.

Alec Hogg (03:26) It is interesting that two of the top leaders in the DA are actually fighting for your city, and Helen, as you mentioned earlier, in Johannesburg. But you're both well behind fifty percent in the polls. So what happens if you don't get fifty percent, you don't get the mayoral position? Do you stick around for another five years in opposition?

Cilliers Brink (03:54) So let's just talk about those polls and the assumptions, because I don't think we've had any prediction. Sometimes they do predictions ahead of elections, but we haven't had that. We haven't had the result being modelled. And there are a few assumptions that will come under pressure and are subject to change. You would have seen, when the Tshwane poll was done by eNCA and the other ones, the SRF and so on, that the vote share didn't add up to a hundred percent. Part of that was undecided voters, but a bigger part of that was the vote split across smaller parties.

As we move closer to the election, I'm sure you would have heard and seen the messaging. The DA has tried to squeeze those smaller parties, conveying the message that it's important to vote for the biggest party: don't waste your vote. Whatever the merits of that message, and we can have that argument, it does have an effect. So that is one change. The second is your logistical ability on election day, basically your ability to organise, to get your voters out. If you add those two factors together, plus the margin of error in the opinion polls, we should not be talking about any…

Alec Hogg (05:05) Mm-hmm.

Cilliers Brink (05:22) …scenario that excludes an outright majority in cities like Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. I think it can still be done. If there's anything the DA can do, we can organise, we can mobilise, we can get our people out to vote. And that's what we're trying to do very, very hard.

You also have to see these opinion polls in the context of an ANC that's coming apart. There's a large voter segment, especially black voters, aspiring middle class, who have become disillusioned with the ANC but haven't quite yet decided who to vote for as an alternative. The DA is incredibly competitive in that voter segment. Of course, it's still to be seen if those voters will actually turn out to vote. But there's everything to fight for, no reason to give up and become despondent.

And Alec, if we do have to work with other parties, which we've got quite a bit of experience of, we will be negotiating with the cards dealt to us by the South African people. We will be trying to put together agreements which will enable us to make the kind of changes we need to make in order to move the cities forward. I think Helen Zille has told you, and I will back her on that, that if we can't put together effective arrangements where we can bring in the kind of personnel and procurement reform needed to get the metros going, then it's no use being in government. But until that is decided by the voters, there is everything to fight for.

Alec Hogg (07:03) It's so interesting. If you're a man from Mars and you're sitting in Gauteng and you look around, you think, well, hang on, you've got the incumbent, the ANC, who are disorganised. Do they have a mayoral candidate yet? Have they announced anyone yet?

Cilliers Brink (07:20) No, they don't have a mayoral candidate in Johannesburg or Tshwane or Ekurhuleni. They say they've identified a number of people who are in the running to be candidates, and I've met a few of them on the debating circuit. But interesting point, Alec. I also think the ANC might reckon on perhaps supporting a mayoral candidate from a smaller party. That is a model that allows the ANC to retain effective control while pushing somebody forward, perhaps from ActionSA or Rise Mzansi or one of the others that are, in policy terms, indistinguishable from the ANC, and govern in that way. So I think for the purposes of internal unity, as well as for tactical and strategic flexibility, the ANC has not nominated official mayoral candidates anywhere.

Alec Hogg (08:19) Okay, so back to the man from Mars. They haven't got a candidate. You've been running for mayor for two years. They also have this legendary ability to get out the vote. The DA seems to have a decided advantage there. Have you seen what the ANC machinery is like? Is it, like other parts of the party, also coming under strain and perhaps not going to be able to bring out the vote as it used to?

Cilliers Brink (08:49) Most definitely under strain. I think if you look at the personality and the aptitude of their secretary-general, who's effectively the head of their organisation, including election preparation, Fikile Mbalula, that is a personification of the state of the ANC. Fewer billboards, fewer placards and posters than ever before, fewer organisers. You can also spot that a lot of their resources have been sent to the rural provinces. So the ANC is in a sort of tactical retreat. And that's what you do: you go back to where you are strongest in times of crisis.

So I think the ANC's ability to turn out their vote is under severe strain. The chaos in the party, the inability to pay salaries and suppliers and to get election lists submitted on time, is also reflected in their election-day readiness. And I think that is also an opportunity for the DA. I mentioned before the opinion polls, the variables, what could change based on the assumptions on which these polls are made. One of them is definitely that your strongest ANC supporters might not turn out to vote, while there is a great deal of enthusiasm from DA supporters to go out and vote.

Alec Hogg (10:14) So you put it all together, and the rational mind says you might get a real surprise, from your perspective, on election day. What would a good result be? What's a good number for you?

Cilliers Brink (10:30) So the first and best scenario is where the DA clears fifty percent plus one. That gives us control of a hundred percent of the decisions. It doesn't make governance easy, but it makes it a great deal easier than trying to put together and hold together chaotic coalitions that are influenced by deployed cadres in the administration, tenderpreneurs that do business with the municipality, and the provincial government of Panyaza Lesufi, which would love nothing more than destabilising and destroying DA governments. The fifty percent plus one scenario certainly clears away most of the obstacles to effective governance.

The second-best scenario is if the DA and, say, one or two other parties get enough to govern together. I think we're going to grow, Alec, in any event. We're going to grow in Johannesburg from, I think, the 27% that we got last time. Whatever we get, we are going to grow significantly, and I think the same is true in Tshwane. So the DA would pass the growth test. But the big question, and this is what we're really working hard on, to get DA supporters to the ballot box, is: will we clear the threshold to form effective governments? That's the important test.

Alec Hogg (12:00) I was speaking to Helen Zille some months ago, when she said it's so important to get all three of those ballots ticked. Has that been your message as well?

Cilliers Brink (12:10) Absolutely. If you live in a municipality such as yours in Hermanus, you've got three ballot papers: one for the district municipality, one for the ward councillor, and one for proportional representation in the council. Here in the metros, Cape Town, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay, Durban, we have two ballot papers. We don't have the district municipality.

So if you are determined to vote for the DA, if you want a DA mayor, if you want a DA-led government with the kind of solutions that we have brought to metros and towns across the country, vote DA on both ballot papers. And I just want to echo Helen's warning that if you do not vote, you forfeit two votes, and in the case of towns, three votes. So it's incredibly important. If you've resolved, double down. Put all of your bets on the DA.

Alec Hogg (13:08) It is quite interesting to see the polls that put Nasiphi Moya, your rival, who's actually ex-DA, as the mayoral candidate polling much better than her party, ActionSA, and you polling less than the DA. Now, you've been mayor of Tshwane before. Why do you think it is that voters seem to like her more than the party, but in your case not so much?

Cilliers Brink (13:37) Well, I don't know whether the votes for potential mayoral candidates were adjusted for turnout modelling. Your polling for the party is turnout-modelled: certain changes of assumption are made based on whether the supporters of that party are likely to go out and vote. I don't know if that happened for the choice of mayoral candidate.

But I do think that the strategic bet of ActionSA, when they made this deal with the ANC in Tshwane and elsewhere, was that they could use the position of mayor to build the profile of their candidate, and that incumbency and the prominence of the mayor's office would be a benefit to the party. Clearly that was the thinking; that was the calculation. They didn't really think about the implications for the city of governing with the ANC, of having to implement an ANC agenda. They wanted to build a brand.

And if you recall, Herman Mashaba, who is less popular in Johannesburg these days than he was in 2021, basically ran on the same ticket. His popularity in Johannesburg, which was the epicentre of ActionSA at that point, was based on his time as mayor. Not that he was a very successful mayor, but being in the limelight, having the mayoral position, the access to the mayoral office, the media coverage that you get: that does build a brand. And I think that was the calculation for Nasiphi Moya in Tshwane. They'll have to see if that works for them.

The downside for her, of course, is that two weeks before the election, about 800 people became ill from contaminated municipal water in Bronkhorstspruit. And there was a second incident in the CBD of Pretoria. Not because of a failure of infrastructure, but because the water had not been chlorinated for three weeks. So although ActionSA had spent a whole lot of time and effort and money building the profile of this mayor in Tshwane, the reality came crashing in.

I think many people might think that Moya sort of looks competent. I think she describes herself as a technocrat. I'm not quite sure…

Cilliers Brink (16:04) …what technicality it is that she has mastered. But I think the reality has come through, and that crisis has shown Tshwane voters that what you get if you vote for ActionSA might be a mayor from a different party, but if that is based on the ANC puppet masters staying in control, things aren't going to stay the same. They're going to get a great deal worse.

Alec Hogg (16:32) Just explain how she is responsible for that. How do you join the dots, the water and the cholera?

Cilliers Brink (16:39) So as mayor, you take overall responsibility for the functioning of the municipality. Now, you could say it's not the mayor's job to check that chlorine stocks aren't depleted at water treatment plants. And I suppose in the ordinary course of things, that would be a reasonable argument. But as the Sunday Times has reported, and as has emerged at the portfolio committees of health and of water, the attention of Mayor Nasiphi Moya was drawn to the deteriorating quality of the effluent from the wastewater treatment plant in Bronkhorstspruit, as well as the treatment plant itself, on three occasions.

So, Alec, if your head as a very busy executive mayor is turned not once, not twice, but thrice to a persistent problem affecting the quality of water and the wellbeing of people, and you then don't put measures in place to ensure that the plant doesn't malfunction, for whatever reason there might be, then you ought to be held responsible.

The other thing that we have been very critical of here in Tshwane is Nasiphi Moya's choice of members of the mayoral committee. Nobody knows who the MMCs are for particular portfolios. Everybody knows who the mayor is. That's why you've got to make sure your MMCs know what they're doing, that they are giving you information that is useful. They're basically like mini-ministers in a metro. And Moya has appointed someone as MMC for water and electricity who basically knows absolutely nothing about this. I think he's a functional illiterate. He used to be the chief whip, and of course he's from the ANC.

Alec Hogg (18:15) Mm-hmm.

Cilliers Brink (18:33) She's also appointed, as MMC for finance, and procurement is obviously central to your stocks of chlorine and everything else, somebody who has been found guilty of doing business with the city. And which party does he come from? The ANC. So Moya placed herself in this position. She accepted the deal of the ANC retaining control of these key portfolios in Tshwane, and she's basically appointed and protected whoever they have deployed to her mayoral committee. And if the consequences of that are bad, you must take responsibility. I think that is what is happening now.

Alec Hogg (19:12) Okay. So although she's the titular head, she couldn't oust incompetent people in her mini-cabinet because the ANC had more votes, or actually kept her in power. Is that the message?

Cilliers Brink (19:33) A deal with the devil essentially has bad consequences. Now, she could say: I can't move this person, I can't move that person. But ultimately she is the executive mayor. She has the benefits of the office, as we've just explained. ActionSA regarded it as a brand-building exercise. Those are the benefits. The downside is that you are held responsible. Even if you're a puppet mayor, you are held responsible for outcomes. I certainly had to account for many things as executive mayor of Tshwane. And so should she.

Alec Hogg (20:05) At BNC#8 in Hermanus, in March this year…

Cilliers Brink (20:14) [agrees: it feels like a lifetime ago]

Alec Hogg (20:15) …it feels like a lifetime ago, doesn't it? You said that the capital budget is the one number that tells you if a city is working or not. Tshwane has a capital budget of R2.8 billion, R2.5 billion, somewhere around there. What would your capital budget be one, two, three years in?

Cilliers Brink (20:36) That's a very important question. We will have to start with what we have. You're going to have to identify the key capital projects in water, electricity and waste collection, your so-called trading services, which are meant to generate a surplus to reinvest in the infrastructure. You're going to have to identify key projects to stop your water losses and your electricity losses, and to ensure that waste collection happens. And you've got to bootstrap that for the first few years.

But Alec, there is no scenario in which a city like Tshwane can move forward if we don't initiate long-term private management agreements on our water, electricity and waste collection. We have to bring in private-sector expertise and partners, because the municipal administrations have been hollowed out, but also because the private sector is where the lever is. You've got to look for a lever, and private-sector partners give you a lever. They can help us reduce distribution losses, and that will give us more options, more things to play with.

So I can't tell you with one hundred percent certainty what my capital budget will be in three years' time. But what I can tell you is that if there isn't a significant improvement, that is a sure sign that we're failing and not succeeding.

Alec Hogg (22:00) Tell me a little more about those private initiatives on electricity and water, because it seems really difficult, even if you have the will, to get that through Treasury, to get that through the red tape. And you've only got a five-year term if you are elected. How long will it take you to do that, and what would be the first step?

Cilliers Brink (22:30) The first step would be the policy decision that you need a 15-year operating and maintenance agreement on your trading services. The city already has a trading services strategy, which National Treasury is putting pressure on all of the metros to execute. That strategy will be amended to make the policy decision that we are going to use private operators.

Now, Alec, I don't want to get too technical, because I don't want to bore people. But we need not go for a formal public-private partnership, as it is highly regulated by National Treasury. It's unfortunately a regulatory house of cards. If you do one thing wrong, the whole process stalls, or you give somebody who didn't win the bid grounds to take the whole thing to court, and you have to start afresh.

There are agreements that you can reach with the private sector, falling short of public-private partnerships, where not all of the risk, or even most of the risk, is assumed by the private partner, but where you bring in private-sector experts whose skills and expertise you can then use to shore up your income streams. Because remember, water is separately billed on your municipal account. It's an income stream. Electricity, the same; waste collection, the same.

And where you've got an income stream and you've got opportunities to reduce losses by making small improvements, the use of technology to monitor where your leaks are in the case of water, the servicing of transformers on your electricity distribution network, a few key things, a few levers that you can pull, you can shore up your income streams and reinvest that money in building the underlying assets. That can yield significant results, not just in improved services but in improved finances. Remember that it's because the municipalities no longer generate surpluses on these trading services that they have losses.

Of course, there are other things as well. Don't try to employ more and more personnel. You don't need more personnel; you need to get control of your existing workforce.

Cilliers Brink (24:53) But there is a lot of sympathy within National Treasury, as well as departments such as Water and Sanitation, for this idea of bringing in private-sector expertise. And working with the likes of Deputy Minister Ashor Sarupen, we're certainly going to make the most of that opportunity.

Alec Hogg (25:10) So it helps to have Ashor in Cabinet. It helps that Treasury seems to have moved from a very obstructive approach towards public-private partnerships to practically supporting them.

Cilliers Brink (25:24) Yes. I think if there's a grand coalition in the South African government, it's more between the DA on the one hand and the Treasury and the Presidency on the other, rather than a grand coalition of everyone else.

Alec Hogg (25:40) That grand coalition: I had a fascinating chat on Friday with Frans Cronje, who you referenced a little earlier, a political analyst we all listen to. Frans was saying the people want the DA and the ANC to be in coalition together, but the politicians don't. Much of what you've said suggests you really don't want to go into coalition with the ANC because of the track record. But if there's a bigger deal, would that be something you'd go along with?

Cilliers Brink (26:11) I'm not sure Frans is right on this one. I've got a great deal of respect for Frans and the work of the SRF. In general, South Africans have expressed a preference for the DA and the ANC to work together in national government. I don't want to play off different pollsters against each other; I think it's a good thing that we've got more players. But if you saw, on Sunday Markdata, the partner of eNCA…

Alec Hogg (26:42) eNCA. Mm-hmm.

Cilliers Brink (26:42, continued) …released some more detailed findings. In fact, in Tshwane (I didn't check Johannesburg), DA supporters and ANC supporters did not express a preference for our two parties working together. And I think people might understand, although they don't make this distinction so clearly…

Cilliers Brink (27:08) …that the folks who represent the ANC at local government level are also those who are running the water tanker mafia, the waste collection mafia, the ones who use public works jobs under the control of the municipality as a patronage machine. And I also think that since the formation of the government of national unity, the ANC's brand has diminished even more.

So I'm not sure that the South African people, or at least the voters of Tshwane, would want us to go into a coalition with the ANC, where we are at the decision-making table with the very people representing the networks who destroyed the city, to a large degree, to begin with. Because what is your room for manoeuvre at that decision-making table? Once you start talking about reforming your electricity, waste collection and water, you're going to get resistance. You're going to get your comrades there saying: no, we can't do this, we can't disadvantage these businesses, for X, Y, Z reason.

So I think the South African people have a sense that the ANC is trouble in the cities. And I don't think the goodwill that still applies, to an extent, to DA-ANC co-operation in the GNU extends to co-operation in the metropolitan cities.

Alec Hogg (28:41) Perhaps because of the unique circumstances of the Gauteng ANC?

Cilliers Brink (28:46) Yes. I think that's also very, very important.

Alec Hogg (28:48) But what about ActionSA, though? You told the BizNews Conference that you've got to be very, very careful of doing anything with ActionSA, and not surprisingly, because they pulled the rug out from under you in the coalition when you were mayor. If that was the only way to become mayor again, would you consider it?

Cilliers Brink (29:10) Well, let me just say something about my remarks to the BizNews Conference. I stand by them, and those who are watching this can go and watch those remarks. It's obviously a very influential gathering and, if I may say so, many wealthy South Africans gather at that conference. Over the years, many of them have given money to Herman Mashaba for ActionSA because he made certain commitments, and my message to them was: don't trust him. He's an interesting character. He can be controversial, very colourful. But don't trust him, because he always hands over power to the ANC. And that message still applies as people prepare to go to the ballot box, although I don't think there are many in the BizNews tribe who still support ActionSA.

But listen, Alec, we are going to have to deal with the result handed to us by the voters. The cards we're going to have at the negotiating table, if we need them, if we don't have a majority, will be dealt to us by the voters. I have heard Herman Mashaba saying that he will not co-operate with the DA if Helen Zille is the mayor of Johannesburg, and he will not co-operate with us if I'm the mayor of Tshwane. And as you yourself, I think, have mentioned, he said the very same thing about the ANC five years ago: he would never work with the ANC.

So we're not going to stand back for ActionSA. That's not how we do things. We will seek our mandate from the people. But the DA is not averse to co-operating with other parties, and we'll have to see what our tactical and strategic options are. Ultimately, the test is: will we be able to make the kind of changes that you and I have been speaking about? Because if we aren't, if there's just gridlock, or things continue as they have gone before, all we're going to do in such an arrangement is tarnish the DA's brand.

Alec Hogg (31:13) You closed at the BizNews Conference by saying there's nothing wrong with South Africa that can't be fixed with what is right with it. Now, in thirty seconds…

Cilliers Brink (31:24) And I stole that from Bill Clinton. But I think it's become part of a broader political lexicon.

Alec Hogg (31:27) Okay. You obviously read a lot, which is very good. But make the same case, in thirty seconds, to someone in Mamelodi who's had no water for the past week.

Cilliers Brink (31:46) This country has got an incredibly sophisticated private sector. Anybody who's got a mother on a state pension and a mother-in-law on a private medical aid knows the difference between the private sector and the public sector. We can leverage what is right with South Africa, sophisticated expertise, capital, a lot of positivity about the future of the country, to fix the things that are wrong. And the things that are wrong are largely in the public sector: the pipes, the electricity, the waste collection. We can use what is right with the country, what's working, to procure value for taxpayers' money and improve the lives of ordinary people.

Alec Hogg (32:31) Cilliers Brink, thank you, one day out from the election, for giving us your insights. Your race is going to be one of the most closely watched, not just by the BizNews tribe and all South Africans, but I think internationally as well, given the preponderance of international embassies in the capital city. Cilliers Brink is the mayoral candidate for the Democratic Alliance in Tshwane. I'm Alec Hogg with your BizNews Edge.

BN Edge | Election eve: Cilliers Brink makes his final case for Tshwane