New DA leader Hill-Lewis acknowledges need to win black voter trust

Geordin Hill-Lewis says bridging trust gap with black South Africans will be central focus as he takes over party leadership.

Geordin Hill-Lewis, who was elected leader of South Africa's Democratic Alliance on Sunday, said winning the trust of black South Africans would be a main focus of his tenure, acknowledging a gap that has constrained the party's electoral performance for more than a decade.¹³

The 39-year-old, who continues to serve as mayor of Cape Town, told the national broadcaster SABC on Monday that the party needed to "close the trust deficit" with voters.³ Black South Africans constitute about 80% of the population, but the DA's support base remains concentrated among white people and other racial minorities.¹³

The party's share of the vote has remained at around 20% since the 2014 general election.³ In the 2024 election, the DA polled just under 22%, a result that brought it into a coalition government with the African National Congress and eight other parties after the ANC's support fell below 50% for the first time.³

Hill-Lewis is still undergoing the DA's internal screening and vetting process to determine his eligibility to stand as a mayoral candidate in the upcoming municipal elections.² He disclosed this when announcing the party's mayoral candidates for Western Cape municipalities, calling his current post "the best job in South African politics".²

The challenge facing Hill-Lewis mirrors that of his predecessors. When Mmusi Maimane resigned as DA leader in 2019, he said the party was "not the vehicle best suited" to build a united South Africa, an assessment described as an indictment of an organisation unable to reconcile its liberal ideals with its internal political economy and voter base.¹

Hill-Lewis has offered few new policy details in his early statements, appearing to rely on the party's thesis that competent governance, fiscal prudence and focus on crime will attract broader support over time.¹ The DA's record in the Western Cape and Cape Town offers some empirical backing for this approach, though questions remain whether competence alone is sufficient in a society where political allegiance is shaped by history, identity and trust as well as service delivery.¹