The Outsider

'The vital first draft of what will be an important history.' – Stephen Grootes

Across the world, outsiders have been infiltrating the theatre of mainstream politics: Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine, Donald Trump in the US, Emmanuel Macron in France, Hakainde Hichilema in Zambia – and, in South Africa, Herman Mashaba, who went from being a business tycoon to Johannesburg's Democratic Alliance mayor and founder of his own political party, ActionSA.

In his trademark opinionated fashion, political scientist Prince Mashele traces Mashaba's life from dire poverty to building the Black Like Me empire. He delivers a fascinating fly-on-the-wall account of Mashaba's dramatic rise to the Jo'burg mayor's office, managing the fragile coalition with the EFF and seeing off ANC dirty tricks. New information and insights abound in the tale of Mashaba's bitter falling out with the DA.

What emerges in this unauthorised biography is a portrait of a pragmatic man with a passion for capitalism, a novice politician who defies ideological boxes. In Mashele's hands, Mashaba is also the perfect foil for our troubling political machinery, revealing ever more sharply the fault lines of South Africa's political system and the rot of the ANC in government. Along the way, expect an adroit and irreverent tour of South Africa's political history.