(The timing of the local government elections in paragraphs 1 and 6 of the item published on April 12 has been corrected)
by Nellie Peyton
JOHANNESBURG, April 12 (Reuters) – South Africa's Democratic Alliance (DA) elected Cape Town Mayor Geordie Hill-Lewis as its leader on Sunday, as the ruling coalition's second-largest party seeks to capitalize on discontent to expand its power in local elections later this year.
The 39-year-old was widely considered a successor to Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, who has led the pro-business party since 2019 and is stepping down.
“If we work hard, we can win more towns and cities than ever before,” Hill-Lewis said in her acceptance speech at a party conference near Johannesburg, laying out broad ambitions for the next national election in 2029.
He said, “I am not satisfied with being a junior partner in a coalition government. Our ambition should be to lead the national government.”
Hill-Lewis has provided few details about her plans, but is not expected to depart significantly from the policies of her predecessor, who led the DA into a coalition with the African National Congress (ANC) in 2024, while continuing to fight over issues such as national health insurance and affirmative action, which the DA opposes.
Local elections are due to be held in Africa's most industrialized country by the end of January 2027, and President Cyril Ramaphosa's ANC is expected to see a decline in the vote again.
Local elections have traditionally been worse than the national vote for the ANC, as voters angry at failures to deliver basic services like water and road repairs punish the party that has been in power since apartheid ended in 1994.
DA struggling to lose reputation as white party
The DA holds 22% of the seats in the lower house of parliament, second only to the ANC with 41%, and has maintained roughly the same vote share for the past decade.
The DA has a reputation for protecting the interests of South Africa's white minority – which it denies – and has not had a non-white leader since Mmusi Maimane resigned in 2019. Some analysts see this as a limiting factor to growth in a country that is more than 90% non-white.
Author and political scientist Susan Boysen said, “If a dynamic person… were of a different color, it would be much easier for them to appeal to a broader constituency.”
(Reporting by Nellie Payton; Additional reporting by Lulah Mapiye; Editing by Tim Cox and Keith Weir)