Herman Mashaba

He was mayor of Johannesburg from 2016 to 2019 for the Democratic Alliance. He is ActionSA's candidate for Mayor of Johannesburg in the 2026 municipal election, announced in February 2026.

Career

Mashaba founded Black Like Me in 1985 with a R30,000 loan, and it grew into South Africa's largest hair brand, expanding to the United Kingdom in 2002. He was a Democratic Alliance member from 2014 and was Johannesburg's mayor from August 2016 to November 2019, the first non-ANC mayor of the city since 1994. He left the DA and founded ActionSA in August 2020, standing as its Johannesburg mayoral candidate in 2021. After the 2024 election he did not take a parliamentary seat.

Positions

Wikipedia describes Mashaba as a libertarian and "capitalist crusader" who opposes race-based legislation, criticises labour laws and supports capital punishment for murder and rape. Launching his 2026 campaign he promised to fix infrastructure, restore order and tackle crime, drug dealing and hijacked buildings. EWN reports he pledged that undocumented foreign nationals operating outside the law would not be welcomed in Johannesburg, and that business support and trading opportunities would be reserved for South Africans and legal permanent residents.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia · Wikipedia · EWN · EWN

Photo: US Embassy South Africa, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons (cropped)