City of Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero says he is not shaken by reports that Democratic Alliance (DA) Federal Chairperson, Helen Zille could be running for mayor of the city.

Morero was addressing members of the media in Pretoria where he and Tshwane Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya announced their readiness to host the forthcoming Mayoral Assembly and the Urban-20 Sherpa Meeting.

The hosting rights of this year’s #Urban20SouthAfrica Mayors Summit provide us, as African leaders, an opportunity to create a table to discuss and debate on our challenges. It’s also a space to provide solutions for the challenges faced by our people. Issues affecting the global… pic.twitter.com/0skPIcW5Sp

— Dr Nasiphi Moya (@nasiphim) June 9, 2025

Johannesburg will co-host the events with Tshwane.

Morero says the 2026 local government elections will be interesting times for South Africans.

“I’m not so concerned, I’m thinking the DA is more scared more than anything. Because they are realising that things are being done. They have already declared local government elections anyway. They are already there when all of us are not yet into electioneering mode.”

“I would imagine that when it comes, then the poster is me and the other one is Zille. Maybe the EFF would say no we are bringing the CIC. Then the ANC say we are bringing Mbeki.”

Meanwhile, Zille says she has unfinished business in the City of Johannesburg. Zille says Johannesburg is broken and must be repaired if South Africa is to function.

“We need to fix Johannesburg if we want SA to work that’s just a simple fact and we need to get a really good team in Johannesburg to get into government and fix it. That is the key job we have to do in the next election cycle and I can assure you if we don’t get Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and the other metros right we can’t get SA right, so that’s the motivation. If the voters want water in their taps, lights to come on and stay switched on and if voters want their roads to be fixed and potholes to be filled and traffic lights to work and rubbish to be picked up, they know what to do.”