Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said he\u2019ll stand for election as leader of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa\u2019s second-biggest political party, a contest he\u2019s widely expected to win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Steenhuisen has led the DA since 2019. He announced earlier this month that we won\u2019t stand for another term when the party holds its elective conference in April. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nominations for a successor opened on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI will be seeking a specific mandate, a mandate to build a stronger DA,\u201d Hill-Lewis told supporters in Cape Town. \u201cIf we are to build a stronger South Africa, we must have a stronger DA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The DA, which garnered 22% support in the last national elections in 2024, is a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s 10-party coalition government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill-Lewis signalled that he backs the DA\u2019s continued participation in the so-called government of national unity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe decision to join the GNU was the correct one, there is no doubt,\u201d he said. \u201cA DA that resigns itself to permanent opposition status is weak.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We cannot be satisfied with shouting from the sidelines. Making a noise is not the same as making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill-Lewis, 39, has served as mayor of South Africa\u2019s second-biggest city since 2021 and won praise for his management of the tourism and financial-services hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s said he intends to seek reelection to that post in the upcoming municipal elections, a job he can do while concurrently leading the DA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The DA\u2019s elective conference is due to take place on April 11, and nominations for leadership posts will close next month. Hill-Lewis is the only person to be nominated for the top job so far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ashor Sarupen, a deputy finance minister, has said he will run for the position of DA federal executive chairman. The post is currently held by Helen Zille, who is running for mayor of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said he\u2019ll stand for election as leader of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa\u2019s second-biggest political party, a contest he\u2019s widely expected to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":832011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1329,2783],"class_list":["post-852476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-da","tag-geordin-hill-lewis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852485,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852476\/revisions\/852485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}