This week in 1396 the Ottoman beheaded 3000 defeated crusaders. In 1665, 100 000 people died of the bubonic plague in London and in 2025 Helen Zille launched her mayoral campaign in Johannesburg. It was never a good week to stick your head out the door. #NeverZille
It started with #JumpingJohn who, if you don’t mind me saying, is unlikely to be able to jump anywhere these days. Sho! Living a ministerial life sure does keep your belly happy. Anyway, as a fat person, I get to take pot shots like that, it’s the only reason you would like to be fat.
So, there was John, shiny, blue and like a boxing ring announcer. Loud and large(ly) irrelevant, he crowed in his leader. The 74-year-old strutted to the stadium, let’s be fair she’s topping for her age. She told her loyal servants that she was running for mayor in Johannesburg. #ShrillerZille
I’m Tonya Khoury and if you’re a regular reader of #ScratchTheSurface, you’ll know that I’m not a Zille fan. I’ve never been a Zille fan, largely because I find her condescending, racist and above all, a genocide-sympathiser. Her funders are Israel, if you haven’t worked it out: Helen is a Zionist. #NeverZille
The same genocide-denialist will tell you that there is a genocide of white farmers in South Africa. That same falsehood that turned our world upside down with Trump. That one she can get behind, she can even get behind the #SudaneseGenocide, so she does know what a real genocide looks like, but the one in Palestine, the 500 000 people missing in Gaza, of which 70% are women and children, that one she refuses to admit exists.
I watched her on #Newzroom in a very calm voice say look straight at Xoli’s face and say “genocide is a big word”. And that … is all you need to know, folks. So because of the shekels she protects terrorists like Netanyahu and denies the heads blown off of innocents, she denies the buildings that crush the civilians bombed by US-made weapons and executed by BeBeez, she denies the number of journalists massacred, the number of hospitals obliterated, the use of white phospherous.
She can’t see the forced starvation; the mass displacement of millions of innocent citizens or if she would just take one story out of the tens of thousands: #BabyHind shot over 300 times in a car. She was target practice. How can she deny that child? #NeverZille.
I’m sorry but she’s mercenary and what she’s misjudged, badly, is how Israelis actually feel about the latest round of reservist call outs. Israel, as a country, has had enough. #NeverZille.
Then she moved on to an interview with Anele on probably Gauteng’s largest radio station and Anele, brash and disrespectful, managed to rile up Gogo Zille in a second. Zille was on the back foot, she was late, she’d misjudged all the traffic lights that aren’t working and the impact on traffic.
Helen, babe
Anele also at one point called her “babe” (Gogo would be more respectful) and then when Anele did point out the fact that Joburg is so cosmopolitan how will Zille cope with all the “refugees” that come here for work. For context this is not ‘refugees’ like Herman #HighHorse Mashaba refers to immigrants. These are people that come from South Africa and travel to the cities to seek out a livelihood. Zille is quoted as saying there are far too many non-Capetonians coming into the city.
The same Zille who introduced the nomad visa for people from the Northern hemisphere to come work in Cape Town. The same Helen who endorsed #CapeExit. The same Zille who, in the interview, said there was nothing wrong with the disparity between rich and poor in Cape Town. The same Zille who said colonialism was a good thing.
In this interview she told Anele that we should have a loving father and mother bring up a child like in the fairy stories. She didn’t acknowledge that these “refugees” leave their children with the grannies at home while they seek out employment. This is our entire nation, Helen, where are you living? I’m not sure which Jozi she wants to run but its largely people hustling for a coin. Joburg is electric, it moves like the matrix feeding different edges of the city with opportunities for gold, nothing has changed from the olden days.
The white picket fence
Now you can’t make a husband and wife, two kids and chicken in every pot with a Model-T Ford in the outside driveway framed by the white picket fence, can you? Not in Joburg. You see, Helen, the gangs in Johannesburg aren’t confined to an area you refuse to maintain, Joburg are the gangs deary.
When she was asked about the Eastern Cape, Zille explained that they’ve been running Cape Town for 20 years but only the Eastern Cape for five. That’s not true, Cape Town has always looked like it looked: pretty #CampsBay and terrifying #CapeFlats. To be realistic, nothing has been done for the poor in a lot more than 20 years in Cape Town so how could you possibly expect anything at all from the Eastern Cape? #NeverZille
Am I saying she can’t do the job as Mayor? Not at all, of course she can do the job. But at what cost? With a nod to her bias? You see a few years back, two elections ago, I wrote a reluctant piece that said Zille has my vote because we need to push out the ANC. South Africa schooled me. Social media tore chunks out of me and most of their responses were linked to either racism or Palestine. But if #GodZille was sitting here now she’d use the line she used on Anele that “Twitter is not the electorate”.
Dismissing the voice of the people with one swipe
You see Helen and I have beef. She refuses to see the power of social media even though her mates at the WitHuis have shown it to work like a charm, but she doesn’t believe it because she doesn’t like what it says. I’ve been to the DA’s offices when Helen was on her, I don’t know, thirtieth retirement announcement and I showed the crew just how valuable social media data is. Acumen Media has proved that through three national elections we can pinpoint who is likely to win.
In fact, this last election, I questioned my data as it predicted 12% win for #MKParty, I called it at 10 (and hid under my desk) and there it landed at a fat round 15%. How can you ignore the citizen’s opinions that they make vocal on their phones? It’s 2025, Madam Zille. We know you’ve worked out how to use X (no-one still calls it Twitter), and you do your trumpeting over there but each time it fails. And so, you dismiss the voice of the people in one swipe? #NeverZille
Do you want to know the tragedy, the real tragedy… there is no one else. It’s orchestrated. You see Dada Morero, head of this water debacle and encumbent mayor, is dead in the … um… water? Correction let’s go with Dada the dodo will be “left in the dust”. Kenny Kunene, the guy visiting gangsters involved in the #MadlangaCommission, was let off the hook, why?
So, he can run for mayor for the PA. That’s why he was let off, you know that don’t you? And because he’s gangster. We have so many questions, but here he is running for mayor. And then everyone is done with Action SA with their political flipflopping and hateful xenophobia. Who’s left? The small minions, the hopefuls and the inexperienced.
What the data says
If you’ve read this far and I’ve haven’t yet offended you, thank you for staying because I’m about to back up my words with data. Let’s look at the past 13 months where Zille has generated almost 600 000 media items. This could be articles or posts on X or Facebook or TikTok – anywhere on the socials and news platforms. Out of all that data, Zille has a negative net sentiment of minus 45%.
Only 9% is positive. In the past seven days, even with the massive media push, her net sentiment got worse by two percent. She has a whopping 60% negative media and only 12% positive.
Her mayoral campaign in Jozi brought back almost 900 000 engagements. This is not kid’s stuff, Helen. This is the real deal. Even if you do manage to squirm your way to the ketang, it is because we are backed into a corner. We want our world class African city back. We want Joburg to work. It has to, it’s the financial hub of Africa, but we don’t want greedy mitts, including yours, doing deals to feed the party and not the man on the street.
Genocide is a massive word
Note to self, it’s called a political party because it literally is a full swing disco with treats everywhere. It’s a massive party at our expense.
My entire column is about #NeverZille. Genocide is a big word, that triggered me, because it’s not a big word for you to use about a handful of farm murders and then in the same bloody interview she said she knows nothing about Gaza but she does know Hamas is bad. You can understand my frustration. Any endorsement of Netanyahu’s reign of terror is impossible for me.
Apartheid is a big word, Helen. Genocide is a massive word because in this week alone Netanyahu called up 60 000 forgotten sons to annihilate their ancient cousins. Even Israel has had enough, Helen.
And yes you can say, “well we are not in Gaza Tonya, we are in Jozi’. It doesn’t matter. How you feel about THIS matters. Most South Africans are glued to Gaza, 400 000 engagements in seven days and over eight million in 13 months. And just as you care about the suffering from the Holocaust, if you don’t care, you will be judged. So “I don’t care” or “not my business” also doesn’t cut it especially when South Africa is heavily involved with the ICC and trying to stop this madness.
At least FF+ does what it says it will do
To be perfectly honest, I’d rather have the Freedom Front Plus run the city of gold, you want to know why? Because at least they do what they say, who they portray is who they are and that’s worth respect. But Zille? #NeverZille
I have no space for other news which is good because to be fair, I haven’t really been on top of my game. I have rarely opened my laptop and if it weren’t for the amazing Acumen team, I wouldn’t know my left from my right. You see, next week Mom’s palliative care journey begins, and it’s peppered with fear and sprinkled with hope. We’ve met some phenomenal people on our journey and Mom is super brave, she’s my hero. She hates Zille too by the way and she swore at her on social media and followed her comment with a #FreePalestine.
That’s my ma she’s 77 years old and she would sort Joburg out good and proper. She’d be fair, she’d feed the poor, she’s make sure the water worked, she’d just glare at the potholes and they would be filled. All this with love and a gentleness that I wish I possessed. Pity we live in Sodwana, hey? Have a good weekend everyone. Don’t hate the data, hate the game. We are always being played.
I’m Tonya Khoury and thank you for scratching the surface with me and Acumen Media.
