After Helen Zille was announced as the candidate of the Democratic Alliance (DA) for mayor of Johannesburg, she was widely interviewed in the press, including by this newspaper.

One of those interviews was with a Primedia radio station 94.7 in Johannesburg. At this newspaper, we have the policy not to comment, in as far as it can be helped, on the activities of other media companies. But in this case, an exception must be made.

Johannesburg is in serious trouble. Property values have, in many cases, not kept up with inflation over the past 20 years. Infrastructure has not been maintained. It is common to have your water or electricity supply interrupted. The roads are potholed. Traffic lights are routinely out. Trenches are unfilled. Fallen lampposts litter the sidewalks. The city police have a reputation for corruption.

There has been a vast out-migration of the most skilled people and many businesses – a loss, therefore, of the most important ratepayers. People close to the action say the corruption of the current city leadership is off the charts.

The implications for the millions of poor people on the suburban fringes of the city are dire. The wealthy can, and do, create enclaves to escape from it all. For the poor, their only hope of finding work and a better life is for the city to be well governed.

Enter Helen Zille, who, in her seventies and off the back of her successful track records in Cape Town and the Western Cape, agrees to run for mayor. She says she’s doing it because she’s mastered her present job, is fit and able, and needs a challenge. That’s all undoubtedly true.

At this newspaper, we suspect there is something else too: a vast patriotic commitment to the success of South Africa and the welfare of its people. Zille could not be faulted if she announced her retirement and spent her days at leisure with her family and grandchildren. Instead, she’s entering the most putrid political cesspit, where she faces, amongst other things, the constant danger of an assassin’s bullet, given what is at stake to the corrupt if she wins.

Disgusting

We won’t repeat it all here because it was so disgusting, but 94.7 spent their 30 minutes with Zille throwing the most ignorant, spiteful, race-fuelled poison at her. It was pure poison pumped through the airwaves and into the bloodstream of Johannesburg society. When Zille tried to address the substantive issues that worry Johannesburg residents, the hosts just threw more spite-laden hate at her. To her very great credit, she kept her cool.

What 94.7 did was not just in poor taste but also very dangerous. South Africa is a society in considerable trouble. More than half of young people do not have work. Populist politicians are not just at the fringes of mainstream parties but also within them. Just this week, this newspaper reported on the African National Congress (ANC) publishing, in its weekly newsletter, the case for abandoning the Constitution. The danger is real that if economic conditions in the country continue to deteriorate, populist incitement could spill into conflict.

Whilst we are not there yet, it is somewhere South Africa could go, and then it would be over. A violent final moment ahead of becoming a failed state. That is the powder keg into which 94.7 thought it would be amusing to shower sparks.

Public opinion

Where South Africa is at the moment, despite its lethargic economy and very high rates of economic exclusion, is very different. Remarkably, public opinion remains centrist, moderate, and pragmatic. Polls time and again show that South Africans, across every line of race, class, and political orientation, share largely the same vision for what the country should be, and, even more remarkable, what it needs to do to get there. On the most difficult issues of race, transformation, labour market policy, property rights, and wealth redistribution, voters from the ANC to the DA, Economic Freedom Fighters, Umkhonto weSizwe Party, Inkatha Freedom Party, and Freedom Front Plus have more in common than what divides them on what to do and how to do it.

There is strong support for the Government of National Unity holding and strong support for property rights over expropriation, sensible labour market reforms that price the poor into work, empowerment policies that reward investment and jobs rather than race, and allowing people to retain the profits of their hard work and risk-taking entrepreneurship.

Most critically, for all the poverty and hate-mongering, the great bulk of ordinary people respect each other and wish the best for each other. For this reason, above all others, South Africa has a good chance of success, especially if its politicians and unity government listen to people and implement the reforms necessary to increase the investment and economic growth rates.

This is the high road future that South Africa can realise – one country, united in its diversity, and sharing a common bond of basic values. This is South Africa’s most precious resource, and it must be strongly defended when the hate-mongers make their move to kill it off by pumping poison into the minds and veins of South African society.