Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster, BOSA’s co-founder and deputy leader, has been named the party’s candidate for Johannesburg mayor. She is no newcomer to national politics. She currently serves in
Parliament and previously stood as BOSA’s candidate for Gauteng premier. But this campaign is about more than winning City Hall. Hlazo-Webster is presenting herself as part of a different
political project — one centred on competence, accountable government and economic growth rather than what she describes as the politics of managing decline. Her promise is ambitious: to build a skills-led city government, stimulate township enterprise, make Johannesburg a major African logistics hub, restore the city’s financial integrity, tackle corruption and make Johannesburg safer. She has also argued that the city needs to be fundamentally reorganised, particularly by addressing the fragmentation between entities such as City Power, Joburg Water and the Johannesburg Roads Agency. But the big question is whether voters are ready to give a relatively smaller political party a chance to run one of Africa’s most important cities. And perhaps even more importantly: what would a BOSA-led Johannesburg say about the changing political landscape of South Africa?