Mayor of Cape Town announces bid for DA party leadership

The mayor of Cape Town on Friday announced he would be running for leadership of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the second-largest party in South Africa's ruling coalition, after current leader John Steenhuisen said he would not be running for a third term.

John Steenhuisen announced earlier this month that he would not run for a third term at party elections in April in a major shake-up ahead of local polls later this year.

"I today announce that I am standing to be the next leader of the Democratic Alliance," Geordin Hill-Lewis told a rally in Cape Town to the cheers of hundreds of supporters. Hill-Lewis, 39, became mayor in 2021 of the touristy city seen as among the better-managed municipalities in the country.

"Under my leadership, we will show, as we have shown here in Cape Town, that the DA governs well and governs for everyone," he said.

The pro-business DA - credited with boosting confidence in South Africa when it joined the 10-party coalition following general elections in 2024 - was rocked by a series of internal controversies over Steenhuisen's leadership. Claiming to be polling at historically high levels, the DA is seeking to win over voters disillusioned with poor performance of the African National Congress (ANC).

The ANC was forced into an uneasy coalition with the former opposition party after losing its 30-year majority in the 2024 national elections, accused of incompetent and corrupt governance. But the DA, which runs on a liberal, free-market agenda, has long struggled to shake off an image of representing the white minority.

"Too often, people see us as distant," Hill-Lewis said. "They feel that we speak at them, not with them. If we are going to grow, we must change that."