{"id":48752,"date":"2026-04-12T17:25:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=48752"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:25:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:25:59","slug":"south-africas-second-biggest-party-elects-geordin-hill-lewis-as-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=48752","title":{"rendered":"South Africa&#8217;s Second-Biggest Party Elects Geordin Hill-Lewis as Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">(AFP) \u2014 South Africa\u2019s second-largest party, the Democratic Alliance, elected Cape Town\u2019s mayor Sunday to lead it into the 2029 national polls, stepping up its drive to take votes away from the faltering ANC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"a9d-pre\">The election of Geordin Hill-Lewis, 39, marks a reset for the centre-right DA that entered a multi-party coalition government in 2024 when the African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a9d\"\/>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a9d\"\/>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"\/>\n<p>\u201cI am not satisfied being a junior partner in a coalition government,\u201d Hill-Lewis said after his widely expected victory was announced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur ambition must be to lead the national government. That is the next chapter that all of us must write together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The liberal DA holds six cabinet positions, compared to 20 for the ANC, in a tense unity government that has been credited with restoring some confidence in South Africa after years of crippling corruption and mismanagement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"a9d-pre\">It also runs the Western Cape province and its capital city, Cape Town, seen as among the better-managed municipalities with many others \u2014 including the economic hub of Johannesburg \u2014 failing to provide reliable basic services such as water and power.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a9d\"\/>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a9d\"\/>\n<p>The government of national unity \u201cis a complex and a fraught thing\u201d, said Hill-Lewis who has run Cape Town \u2014 a booming international tourist destination \u2014 since 2021.<\/p>\n<p>But, \u201cIt exists because people want cooperation, not chaos,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The ANC was forced to seek coalition partners after it managed only 40 percent of votes at the 2024 elections, a drop from 62 percent at the first-all race vote that ended white minority rule in 1994.<\/p>\n<p>The DA took 22 percent in 2024 and recent polling by the Ipsos market researcher showed a similar level of support ahead of local government polls due between November and January.<\/p>\n<p>The ANC remained the most-supported party with 38 percent, according to the Ipsos survey of 3,600 people released last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"a9d-pre\">The party of Nelson Mandela holds its own leadership conference next year ahead of the 2029 general elections. No clear replacement to President Cyril Ramaphosa has emerged.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a9d adSo\"\/>\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/t\/assets\/html\/tweet-5.html#1731348164656152677\" data-btlnk=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BreitbartLondon\/status\/1731348164656152677\" class=\"bnn-if-tweet\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Hill-Lewis, the DA\u2019s likely presidential contender, said his mission was to grow the party into the largest in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Among the country\u2019s many crises, his priority was to end lawlessness and crime.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must take back our streets,\u201d he said. \u201cWe must restore faith in our criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Africa\u2019s most industrialised nation has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with an average of more than 60 people killed each day, according to police data.<\/p>\n<p>An unemployment rate of around 31 percent is among the most pressing concerns of the population of 63 million, followed by illegal immigration and corruption, according to a recent survey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"a9d-pre\">Veteran DA activist and leader, Helen Zille, is the party\u2019s candidate for mayor of Johannesburg at the upcoming polls, launching a cheeky campaign that has seen her plunging into some of the city\u2019s enormous water-filled potholes.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a9d adSo\"\/>\n<p>Addressing the congress on Saturday, she rejected criticism of the racial make-up of the party whose outgoing leader, John Steenhuisen, was also white.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are the party of inclusion not division. We call ourselves the blue people, not black, not white, not brown.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow we are on course to become the largest party in South Africa\u2019s metros at the end of the year. From there we move to the next milestone: becoming South Africa\u2019s biggest party,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/t\/assets\/html\/tweet-5.html#1036324422053974016\" data-btlnk=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BreitbartLondon\/status\/1036324422053974016\" class=\"bnn-if-tweet\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"western\"><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Follow Breitbart London on Facebook:<\/span><\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BreitbartLondon\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Breitbart London<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/europe\/2026\/04\/12\/south-africas-second-biggest-party-elects-cape-town-mayor-hill-lewis-as-leader\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(AFP) \u2014 South Africa\u2019s second-largest party, the Democratic Alliance, elected Cape Town\u2019s mayor Sunday to lead it into the 2029 national polls, stepping up its drive&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}