On Sunday, the Democratic Alliance’s 2026 federal congress voted on the party’s new leader. And the winner was… Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, with more than 90% of the vote. Shame, seems rival Sibusiso Dyonase, the DA caucus leader, didn’t get much of a look-in.
Hill-Lewis succeeds outgoing leader John Steenhuisen, who announced in February he would not be running for a third term. Steenhuisen had led the party for six years, since 2019. The main achievement of his tenure was steering the party into the government of national unity after the 2024 general elections.
Hill-Lewis certainly has his work cut out for him as the new DA leader. In the short term, the party is gearing up for the upcoming local government elections. The DA has historically made inroads in local governance – it has governed the City of Cape Town for 20 years, and 31 municipalities are currently led by DA mayors (some of them in coalition).
In the medium term, the party is also sharpening its strategy for the 2029 general elections, where it hopes to emerge as the largest party. It’ll take some doing – the DA polled about 21% last time round.
But who exactly is Hill-Lewis? What does he stand for, how has he performed, and what does his leadership mean for the party? We unpack these questions for you below.
Who is Geordin Hill-Lewis?
To understand how Hill-Lewis got to the top, it helps to chart his political rise within the party. He’s only 39 years old, but he’s had a couple of decades or so in the party, with his first involvement in student politics at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He launched the DA’s first student branch there in 2005 and, two years later, the student wing won the head Student Representative Council position.
But he paid attention to his studies as well – Hill-Lewis has a BCom and PPE (hons) from UCT and a Master’s in Finance from the University of London (specialising in economic policy), giving him a much firmer academic foundation than his predecessor, Steenhuisen, who famously has only a matric.
After his studies, Hill-Lewis worked closely with senior DA leadership, serving for five years as Helen Zille’s chief of staff when she was party leader and Western Cape premier. He entered parliament in 2011, representing the DA in the national assembly at just 24 years old, making him one of the youngest MPs at the time. Ten years later, he was elected as the mayor of Cape Town.
During his time in parliament, he worked across several key portfolios, including trade and industry and finance. Hill-Lewis has often framed his political work around reducing poverty and improving opportunities, focusing on ensuring better basic services and more equal life chances for South Africans.
His performance as mayor of Cape Town
The City of Cape Town is one of South Africa’s largest metros and one of the country’s best-performing municipalities.
Should we rate Hill-Lewis for doing a good job? Well, it depends on how you see it.
Under his leadership, the city spent close to R10 billion on infrastructure in 2025 alone. During his entire tenure, it has spent more than Johannesburg and Tshwane combined.
And it seems he’s doing the best he can on jobs: Cape Town has the lowest unemployment in the country. About 1.8 million people are in work, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created in recent years.
It’s not all plain sailing, though: housing remains a major pressure point. The City has released additional land for affordable housing and is developing thousands of units. But demand continues to outstrip supply.
A GroundUp report in February estimated Cape Town’s housing backlog at about 600 000 units. The City delivers some 2 500 state-subsidised homes a year: if it continues at this pace, it would take 240 years to clear the backlog, never mind accounting for population growth.
Much of this growth and demand for housing is driven by internal migration, as people move to the city in search of employment opportunities. At the same time, rising property prices have made formal housing increasingly unaffordable for many households.
On a more positive note, safety has been a big focus for the City, with 800 new metro police officers added in 2025.
As mayor, Hill-Lewis has also led upgrades to water systems, sewer infrastructure, and energy projects, including a new plant that converts landfill gas into electricity.
What about diversity?
Hill-Lewis’s election raises questions about the DA’s long-term strategy. South Africa’s second-largest party is trying to expand its support across the country and aiming to be the majority party in the 2029 general elections. The party presents itself as non-racial, but it still faces questions about whether its leadership reflects the people it aims to win over. (To put it bluntly: Hill-Lewis is the DA’s second consecutive white male leader, whereas Mzansi is a majority black country.)
Hill-Lewis says the party wants to expand its support beyond its traditional voter base (read: largely white and middle-class) and appeal to all South Africans. Speaking after he was elected as DA leader, he said the party would focus on showing it “genuinely cares about the advancement of every South African, regardless of the circumstances of their birth”.
He also acknowledged the DA faces a “trust deficit” among black voters and said it must work to convince people that it is committed to addressing their concerns. Hill-Lewis said this change would not happen quickly, describing it as a gradual process of rebuilding trust and communication with voters countrywide.
It’s been more than three decades since the advent of democracy, but better late than never? The proof will be in the polls: local government elections will take place later this year, although a date has yet to be announced.
