“I Wonder if There Are Fish in Here”: Helen Zille Swims in 3-Year-Old Johannesburg Pothole

• Johannesburg's mayoral candidate, Helen Zille, swam in a pothole to highlight the city's infrastructure issues
• The video garnered over half a million views and sparked conversation among South Africans
• Comments ranged from humour to concerns about health and municipal service delivery

The Democratic Alliance's federal chair and Johannesburg's mayoral candidate, Helen Zille, surprised many when she decided to swim in a pothole, which she jokingly called a snorkel pool. While Helen's video seemed light-hearted, it addressed a serious issue in the bustling city that the politician hoped to remedy.

The clip was posted on 30 March 2026 and showed the 75-year-old former Western Cape Premier in a wetsuit and a snorkelling mask in Douglasdale, a residential suburb in Sandton.

She facetiously captioned her post:

"This is one of Joburg’s many public facilities for swimming. No opening hours and no maintenance plan, yet somehow it keeps expanding."

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According to Helen, the pothole has been in the road for three years, resulting from a burst pipe. She stated that there were many attempts to fix the pipe and alleged that people would burst it again when the opportunity to work overtime arose.

After doing backstrokes and before submerging her face in the brownish water, Helen said:

"I wonder if there are fish in here. Let me take a look."

Watch the Facebook reel below:

Helen Zille's pothole swim amuses South Africans

Garnering over half a million views and thousands of social media users in the comment section, the video certainly sparked a conversation among Johannesburg residents, as well as many other South Africans.

Denzil Mukuma shared in the comments:

"New content creator in town. First, I thought I was watching a Leon Schuster movie intro."

Thinking about the sequences to one's health, Peter Labistour wrote:

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"Best you go for a very hot shower. Who knows what is floating around in that impromptu pool?"

Amoré Sameera Jooste added under the post:

"Well done, City of Joburg. At this point, we are getting new swimming pools faster than basic service delivery."

Thinus Herselman jokingly remarked:

"Please enquire whether proper regulations and considerations were made by the municipality when building this pool. Also, who got the tender because I smell a tender."

Tersia Botes applauded Helen, writing:

"You’re a rockstar! But I’ll be too scared to catch any goggas in there."

Samantha Victor asked the politician:

"Helen, this is hilarious, but aren't you scared you'll get sick?"

3 Other stories about potholes

• In another article, Briefly News reported on a resurfaced video showing how potholes were miraculously fixed after a man spray-painted a political party's name around them.
• A local man had had enough of the potholes in his community and planted trees in them to get the government's attention and force the municipality to fix them.
• In 2023, the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) refuted claims of 25 million potholes on the country's roads, stating that such a high number was "improbable and unlikely."

Source: Briefly News