She is a dazzling appearance in red. Red tailored suit, short blond hair à la Hillary Clinton, and matching red lipstick; every inch of her displays the tough politician she has to be in the daily power struggle of her life in politics, without loosing the charm of the feminine. Her radiating smile fills the Baxter Theater with a glorious shine. Her walk tells of dignity and respect, of power, knowledge and pride. She is a woman of charisma, a leader and lioness, one look at her is more telling than a thousand words could be.
When she opens her mouth, her deep, calm, strong voice reassures the audience of the picture that her body language and sense of style already evoked in everybody’s mind, and one can well imagine that this woman is not only persuasive, but can easily debate with such conviction and persistence that even Mr. Ramaphosa of the African National Congress (ANC) can do nothing but agree.
Before Helen Zille spoke to the women of the IWC Cape Town, on Thursday, August the 2nd, her bodyguards checked every inch of the theater. After all, Mrs. Zille is a very important woman, the mayor of Cape Town, and nothing can be left to chance.
Mrs. Zille has a very busy schedule these days; her driver rushes her over to the Baxter Theater after an unplanned emergency parliament session due to floods in the Western Cape. From head to toe a busy politician she still polishes her speech in the car, a speech that she herself describes as unusual. Unusual, she says, because she does not like to talk about herself. She is an incredibly hard-working, bright and factual woman. She certainly has learned how to fight for what she believes in, but today she has come not only to talk about her policies, not only about the great challenges facing the city of Cape Town, not only about floor crossing and other acrobatic political tricks that could catapult her out of her office before the end of next year. She has come to talk to the assembled women from around the globe, foremost about her challenges as the First Lady of Cape Town. Her sense of humor becomes apparent when she quotes her husband as saying “That’s no lady, that’s my wife” in response to the title given to her by the IWC.
Mrs. Zille has done her homework when it comes to public speaking. She starts off by making the audience laugh and ease up. What could work better than speaking about sports related issues? Sport is a popular topic with possibly the strongest unifying potential in the country. She humorously describes her experienc in an odorous dressing room with intoxicated players, still staggering with joy after a successful game when a cheeky sportsman came up to her and asked: “Are you the mayor? Man, you look just like a housewife!” The response of her husband was prompt: “I wish!”
Between women, we can joke about our image, the interconnection and eclipse of traditional role expectations, and what we hope for each other and ourselves today. Although the career woman is more prevalent in the minds of young girls nowadays, many of them will fail at the near impossible task of uniting the world of a mother and that of a career woman, if they do not hit their head against the notorious glass ceiling.
Helen Zille has managed to be an outstandingly successful career woman without renouncing her right to a family. She is the First Lady of 2 500km² of land, about 3.25 million inhabitants and an 18 billion Rand (South African currency) budget. 21 000 staff members work for her, her day is organized by no less than three secretaries, and she does not usually go anywhere without her driver and bodyguards.
What has transformed the young Helen into such a powerful woman? Or better, how did young Helen transform herself into her intelligent, strong and successful contemporary being? The answer is simple: Step by step, her working experiences prepared her for the demanding job of the DA mayor of Cape Town, they added up to a pool of knowledge that she can now draw from. With a bright smile, she states that being the mayor is not even the most difficult job she ever had. As unbelievable as it may sound to the assembled women of the IWC, Mrs. Zille affirms, that she now feels much more relaxed, more invigorated and inspired than prior to taking on this responsibility. This job, according to her, is more enjoyable but also much more challenging than any other hurdle she has risen above before.
What is more, Mrs. Zille has accomplished a lot in her life: After completing her BA in Witwatersrand she worked as a secretary, then as an aspiring political journalist for the Rand Daily Mail, which introduced her to the political sphere and influenced her decision to devote her life to political activism. She then founded a family, and became the senior partner for Zille Shandler Associates, a public policy consultancy, before she was employed by the University of Cape Town as the Director of Public Affairs and Communication. Following this job, she began working in the provincial government, became the Minister of Education, then the leader of the opposition. She finally moved up into the national government and emerged as the mayor of Cape Town.
This brief summary indicates not only a very exciting and dynamic life, but also allows us a glimpse at the incredible strength and motivation, not to mention the bright intellect, the woman in front of us has at her disposal.
Mrs. Zille revealed to us that it was the most difficult job for her to start a small viable business, the reason being a combination of her age at the time (39), the circumstances of her personal life (seven months pregnant), and the nature of the business. In her public policy consultancy she, as a mother of a baby and a three year-old, advised the political and entrepreneurial world about the new order during a fast changing period in South Africa’s history. According to Mrs. Zille, the challenges she faced were determined by time and place, as well as personal risk. She put everything she had and more into her business.
During his time, her husband was a never ending source of support. As the company constantly grew, her stress level increased with every new employee. She felt incredibly sleep-deprived, stressed, exhausted, and being torn in every direction while giving her best to fulfill her roles as mother, wife and business woman. By saying this, she is sure to win the hearts of her target audience, because it is easy for women from all over the world to identify with these feelings and the chronically bad conscience of a working-mom.
So what has changed since then? Why is her demanding job now less stressful for Mrs. Zille? What keeps her going at 4 a.m. when she gets up to check her e-mails, until late at night after the last dinner party or debate is over? First of all, her children are older now, which allows her to spend quality rather than quantity time with her family. Furthermore, she is no longer flying solo, she leads a team; her stress level has decreased and several working hours have been removed from her day, simply because she has three secretaries and a driver.
Moreover, Mrs. Zille can now draw from her past experiences: She learned all about politics as a journalist. She realized how the pursuance of power and politics are interconnected, how politics is all about power: How to get it, to keep it, and to use it. (Just when we get a glimpse on Mrs. Zille, the power woman, she shares a joke to lighten up the atmosphere “Of course”, she says “being in power is much nicer than in opposition!”)
During her days as political activist in the 80s she established a network among the United Democratic Front she still draws on today. There are not many things as strong as the bond that connects political activists that stood united against the Apartheid regime. Her time working for the public policy consultancy has taught her how to define and solve a problem, how to formulate strategies and policy questions, and how to make the right choices. While working for UCT, she established connections with experts that she can trust and from who she can ask advice. As Minister of Education and as head of the governing body of the Grove Primary School, she learned about the organization of a primary school and the relationships between the colleagues, which prepared her to handle a coalition of seven parties, and how to handle a huge, hostile bureaucracy that has every interest in her personal failure but none whatsoever in her success. From being a member of the opposition, she learnt how to drive a policy against the ANC mainstream party.
So why did Helen Zille stand for mayor? “They promised me I couldn’t win!” she says laughingly. And it did seem unlikely at first: Mayor Zille is in power because she had the majority of only one vote out of 210 with a seven party coalition and an 8th party abstained.
She is thrilled and exhilarated that she did get the chance to take on the biggest challenge of her lifetime. It is a challenge in terms of the workload, the complexity and the personal leadership challenges. She likes to compare the volume of her task to a fire hydrant, which once the pressure is released, sprays an unrestrained fountain of water. She has to formulate new policies and oversee their implementation. Here, good governance is her key. She also takes pride in meticulously following up every individual case that is brought to her. She enjoys getting to the heart of every problem and reflecting on how her policies are going to articulate in every sphere of bureacracy. She has to battle with the changes of mentality in such a fast paced world, and the often times inappropriately slow response of the massive bureaucracy. She fights for less administration and quicker decision-making. This, she describes as an enormous task, because the rules are insufficiently flexible to allow for economic growth and job creation in today’s globalized world. This challenge is not facilitated by her seven party coalition with widely diverging policy positions. The nature of the demanding task becomes particularly apparent in some of Cape Town's sport events: The opening of the gay games, for example, was vital to some, and an affront to others, and partners are diametrically opposed for the 2010 games as well. The question that Helen Zille always faces is: Is it worth bringing the government down by enforcing my policy for this issue?
Most disturbing to her, is that there are things entirely beyond her control: Personal relations within the ANC, the internal coup of the African Muslim party, and floor-crossing legislation that does not allow for long term comfort. But Mrs. Zille has decided to act as if she had an overwhelming majority, to take on the big issues such as housing, job creation and the 2010 soccer world cup now, and to create a clean, open and good government. This is especially important to her, because she believes the reason for Africa being poor is foremost bad government through nepotism, which leads to a collapse of political and economical systems, which in turn, fosters an environment for despotism. This is stated in “The shackled continent” by Robert Guest and underpins the DA’s policy to avoid a tendency leaning towards dictatorship.
On a personal level, Mrs. Zille has learned to develop a thick skin when confronted with bad press. Nowadays, she is quite happy that she kept her maiden name, and so are her boys. Helen Zille is convinced that what she does is right, and she has evidence to believe in positive change. It is rewarding to her, to be in a position that enables her to bring about change, it is her passion to do what she can. Nonetheless, the real stress comes from challenges she is faced with, that are impossible to meet. Here, she mentions the lack of housing for 400 000 people in the mother city. Realistically, she admits that whatever she does, it is unlikely to meet the desperate needs of the people.
She draws her inspiration amongst others from the 2nd US President John Adams because he had to face similar challenges. He too fought against division for a stable democracy, and witnessed the birth of the first multi party system in his country. As Mrs. Zille says, while reading Adams’ biography it becomes apparent which great personal sacrifices a life in politics requires, but it also becomes clear what a chance one is given to ameliorate the world. Adams is convinced that he must study politics and war, so that his sons will have the freedom to study mathematics and economics, in order to give their children the liberty to study art, literature, music, and other great human achievements. It is the foundation that needs to be solid, providing the stability that is a prerequisite to living a life, devoted to the pursuit of happiness. It is this foundation that must be built in South Africa, and of which Mrs. Zille understands her work to be part.
By the end of the speech the mayor has clearly charmed the ladies. Every body agrees that she completed her speech with such bravura that one can not help but wonder, whether speaking about herself wasn’t too bad after all for Mrs. Zille.
The First Lady also allocated half an hour for questions during which she addressed Cape Towns most pressing issues: The 2010 world cup, corruption, the housing backlog, Cape Town’s police and transport system, security and much more. She is eloquent, confident and judicious.
Before the mingling starts, Di Berrill, herself an ex-mayor of Cape Town gracefully walks onto the stage, warmheartedly thanks Helen Zille, and reads “imagine a woman, a woman who believes it is good to be a woman…” a poem dedicated to all strong women on this planet, which gives me goose-bumps and brings tears to Mrs. Zille’s eyes. The two women hold each other a long time, mayor to mayor, woman to woman, an understanding for the struggles the other has and had to face, the challenges that had and have to be mastered and the accusations that had and have to be fought, simply because they are a woman in a "man’s" job. When the honorary membership is offered to Mrs. Hellen Zille she accepts and thus becomes part of yet another powerful network that will play its part well during the next elections, which are around the corner.
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