Geordin Hill-Lewis grew up politically in the DA. He has long been associated with Helen Zille’s wing of the party, so there is some symmetry in the fact that he has followed in her footsteps as both Cape Town mayor and DA leader.
But anyone who has met or interacted with both Zille and Hill-Lewis will know that their personalities are very different.
Hill-Lewis is personable. The kids would say he has rizz. But politically, one of the questions that has followed his rise is whether he can translate his profile in Cape Town into a national one. Polling earlier this year suggested that a large proportion of South African voters still did not know enough about him to have an opinion.
He makes no secret, though, of how much he loves being mayor of Cape Town.
“They both have their pros and cons. I’ve loved every minute of being the mayor of Cape Town. Being the DA leader is still a steep learning curve, but I love campaigning on the ground. I love meeting people. That’s where I get my energy from. I’m very much a people’s person.”
Hill-Lewis’s political style is not particularly combative. That came through when we spoke about his relationship with President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The DA is part of the Government of National Unity, which means Hill-Lewis now has to manage an unusual relationship with Ramaphosa: the president is both the leader of the DA’s largest governing partner and its biggest political opponent.
Hill-Lewis says they speak reasonably often.
“I said to the president upfront he can expect frankness and directness, but always respect. I have immense respect for the office of the president, and I respect him as a person as well. And so we will have sharp disagreements, but never in a rude or disrespectful way. I just say: this is my firm position, this is what I believe, this is why I believe it. Let’s discuss that.”
Interestingly, there is another similarity between Hill-Lewis and Ramaphosa: both project themselves as considered decision-makers rather than politicians who shoot from the hip.
Hill-Lewis certainly doesn’t come across as impulsive. He likes to apply his mind, weigh his options and then make a decision.
As we were doing the interview, I kept thinking about a question someone had asked me at an event the week before: Could the DA actually lose its outright majority in Cape Town?
Five years ago, that might have sounded absurd. It sounds much less absurd now.
Cape Town is central to the DA’s political pitch. The party presents the city as its proof of concept: This is what we can do when you give us a government to run.
In that sense, Cape Town is the DA’s audition tape for the rest of the country.
The party won 58.22% of the Cape Town vote in the 2021 local government elections. But there are signs that this election could be considerably tighter.
An Ipsos municipal poll published in September put the DA at 46% in Cape Town, with the ANC at 26%, the EFF at 11% and the Patriotic Alliance at 8%. Polls are snapshots rather than predictions, but that result helps explain why the DA is not treating Cape Town as a foregone conclusion.
I am not in the crystal-ball business, so I put the question directly to Hill-Lewis.
What surprised me was how readily he conceded that retaining Cape Town is not the walk in the park you might expect for an incumbent party that has governed the city for two decades.
“I think this is my eighth election that I’m fighting. I always get incredibly nervous. I do. I take nothing for granted. I am outworking all of my opponents in Cape Town.”
He is careful not to sound complacent as the incumbent, but equally quick to tell you how hard he is working to keep the city.
“I guarantee you that I am out from early in the morning until late at night. Every day. Six or seven public engagements, campaigning, you name it. So I’m putting in massive effort to make sure that we retain it. But I would be wrong to say that it’s a sure thing. It is not a sure thing.”
There are several pressure points in Cape Town, but two came up prominently in our conversation: the cost of living and the controversial N2 safety wall.
The latter is a R114-million N2 Edge Safety Project, including a concrete barrier along roughly nine kilometres of the highway. The City says it is intended to protect motorists, pedestrians and surrounding communities from crime and improve safety along the route.
Hill-Lewis puts crime near the centre of his pitch for another term. Housing is another issue he has publicly identified as a priority.
That may rub some Capetonians the wrong way, particularly those who feel they are increasingly being priced out of their own city.
And then there is the wall.
Hill-Lewis’s political opponents have battered him over it, arguing that the City is effectively trying to hide Cape Town’s inequality behind concrete rather than dealing with its underlying causes. The ANC and GOOD are among those that have opposed the project, while then-acting police minister Firoz Cachalia argued that a barrier was no substitute for sustained policing.
Hill-Lewis rejects that criticism as politicking. His argument is straightforward: crime on the N2 is a serious problem. Motorists have been attacked along the route, and the City says the project is part of a broader safety intervention that includes lighting, pedestrian crossings, CCTV and additional metro police deployments.
We were pressed for time, so there were things I didn’t get to.
I didn’t get into the controversy around Cape Town DA councillor Abdulkader “AK” Elyas, who was found guilty in an internal DA disciplinary process of charges relating to false claims about his qualifications and has nevertheless remained a councillor. Recent reporting has placed him high on the DA’s Cape Town candidate list.
I also didn’t get to ask Hill-Lewis whether he sees himself as president one day, although he has made his broader ambition for the DA very clear: he wants it to become the biggest party in South Africa and lead the national government.
And I didn’t ask him about the DA’s position on Palestine. The party has been trying to keep this local government campaign focused on municipal issues rather than foreign policy. Given the limited time, I thought it was more useful to interrogate Hill-Lewis on the election directly in front of him.
On 4 November, voters will decide whether the DA should get more support it got in the last election.
And Hill-Lewis, at least, isn’t pretending the answer is guaranteed.
The full interview is live on our YouTube channel. Give it a watch and let me know what you think.