The 282 to 101 defeat of the EFF’s motion against Speaker Thoko Didiza shows the Government of National Unity is growing stronger, and South Africa now needs that stability to deliver real reform, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

The decisive defeat of the Economic Freedom Fighters’ motion of no confidence in National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza last week was more than routine parliamentary theatre.

The EFF did not get close.

The 282 to 101 vote showed that, despite its internal tensions, the Government of National Unity can still close ranks when political stability and the integrity of key institutions are at stake. In a political landscape defined by fragmentation, that resilience has become one of the most important stabilising forces in South African public life.

The GNU — the broad coalition the ANC formed with the DA, IFP, Patriotic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus and others after losing its parliamentary majority in the 2024 election for the first time since 1994 — continues to see its parties disagree over policy, personalities and the exercise of executive power. But they are showing an increasing ability to contain those differences without allowing every dispute to become a threat to the government itself.

The vote was about more than Didiza. It demonstrated that the GNU is becoming stronger as a framework for managing disagreement, protecting institutions and isolating political forces that would pull the country away from its reform programme.

Not all 282 MPs who opposed the motion belong to GNU parties. But that makes the result more significant. Alongside the ANC, DA, IFP, Patriotic Alliance and Freedom Front Plus were ActionSA, Build One South Africa, Rise Mzansi, the PAC and Al Jama-ah. The parliamentary centre extended well beyond the formal government. The EFF was supported by the MK Party, African Transformation Movement and a handful of smaller parties — a substantial bloc, but one confined to roughly a quarter of the National Assembly.

The EFF accused Didiza of protecting President Cyril Ramaphosa after she decided not to oppose his court application to halt the Phala Phala impeachment committee’s proceedings. Phala Phala refers to the scandal that began in February 2020 when more than R10-million in foreign currency was stolen from Ramaphosa’s game farm and the theft was not properly reported to the police. An independent panel later found there was a case to answer, and Parliament has been trying to establish a full inquiry ever since. The DA also disagreed with elements of Didiza’s approach. But DA chief whip Glynnis Breytenbach drew an important distinction between criticising a decision and finding sufficient grounds to remove the Speaker.

That distinction is a sign of institutional maturity. GNU membership did not require the DA to pretend Didiza had acted perfectly. It required the party to judge whether the threshold for removing the head of the National Assembly had been met. It concluded that it had not.

The vote showed that disagreement inside the GNU does not have to result in governmental collapse. This would have been considered optimistic two years ago.

When the GNU was formed after the ANC lost its majority in 2024, many expected it to be short-lived. The ANC and DA differed on national health insurance, expropriation, education, empowerment, foreign policy and the size and role of the state. The budget and a proposed VAT increase — which would have raised the tax on goods and services from 15% to 15.5% — later brought the arrangement close to breaking point. Yet the GNU survived. The VAT proposal was withdrawn, the parties absorbed the political damage and the government continued. The partners have gradually discovered that compromise is not surrender and that disagreement need not become divorce.

This matters greatly to South African business and investors. They supported the GNU not because they expected the ANC and DA to become ideological allies, but because the alternative was far more dangerous. An ANC arrangement with MK and the EFF could have threatened fiscal discipline, property rights, central bank independence and the opening of network industries to private participation. By contrast, the GNU offered continuity at the Treasury and a chance to accelerate reforms in electricity, freight rail, ports, water, digital communications and public administration.

Businesses can price policy risk. They struggle to price political chaos.

That does not mean South African business is satisfied with Ramaphosa. Some business leaders have lost patience with the slow pace of implementation, weak consequence management and the president’s reluctance to confront entrenched interests. Reform has been painfully slow, investment remains inadequate and the benefits have not yet translated into sufficient economic growth or jobs.

But business can be disappointed in Ramaphosa while remaining invested in the GNU. Increasingly, the coalition rather than the president alone is becoming the guarantor of reform. The institutional arrangement may prove more valuable than the individual who helped establish it.

The GNU’s stability is also important to the work of rebuilding the state. The Madlanga Commission — a judicial inquiry into how criminal networks may have penetrated the police and other law enforcement structures — is continuing its work. The Zondo Commission, which investigated state capture under former president Jacob Zuma, has completed its work and some of its recommendations are being put into practice. A stable governing centre reduces the risk that every damaging revelation becomes a trigger for the collapse of government. It allows commissions to complete their work and gives the NPA, the Hawks, the SIU and the courts political space to act.

The next responsibility of the GNU must be to protect the institutions whose independence will determine whether state capture can recur — the NPA, police, Crime Intelligence, the Hawks, the State Security Agency, state-owned companies and the Auditor-General. It must also protect whistle-blowers, who continue to carry an enormous personal risk for exposing the theft of public money.

Both MK and the EFF have a democratic right to organise, contest elections and hold the government accountable. Their voters must be respected. But neither party has demonstrated that it would strengthen the constitutional institutions on which economic recovery depends. Keeping them out of executive power must happen through democratic persuasion and credible performance, not through an anti-democratic cartel. The GNU will retain legitimacy only if it governs better, protects opposition rights and allows voters to judge it freely.

The next great test will come after the 4 November municipal elections. Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay may again produce hung councils where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone. If GNU principles are extended to these cities, South Africa could replace unstable transactional coalitions with broad agreements centred on financial recovery and service delivery.

For business, functioning metros are not a secondary governance issue. These cities contain the country’s principal economic infrastructure. No national reform programme can succeed while businesses face water outages, failing roads, incorrect bills, collapsing sewage systems and unstable municipal administrations.

The country needs the GNU to endure beyond the 2029 national election — not necessarily in its current form or under its current leaders, but as a governing principle. South Africa’s post-majority future will require parties to cooperate across ideological lines, protect institutions and accept that no single organisation owns the state.

Stability is not an end in itself. It is the platform from which reform, investment and employment can grow.

The Didiza vote showed that the centre is holding. The challenge now is to use that stability to produce functioning cities, faster reforms, rising investment and jobs. If the GNU can do that, it will become more than a temporary response to an inconclusive election. It could become the foundation of South Africa’s democratic recovery.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose will go deeper on the GNU’s resilience, the Didiza vote and what it means for South Africa ahead of November in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and the Financial Mail. 

Pictured above: Thoko Didiza. 

Image source: ActionSA

The Mark Burke affair tests the DA’s most valuable political asset, its reputation for clean government, at the worst possible moment before November, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics. 

The Democratic Alliance has built its election campaign around a simple promise: where the DA governs, government works.

That promise is more important to the party than almost any individual policy. Many voters may disagree with the DA on land reform, black economic empowerment, affirmative action or public healthcare. But they are prepared to consider voting for it because they associate the party with cleaner administration, functioning services and consequences for wrongdoing.

With municipal elections less than three months away, that reputation is now being tested from within.

The controversy surrounding DA MP Mark Burke could hardly have arrived at a worse time for party leader Geordin Hill-Lewis. Burke was the DA’s finance spokesperson and one of its brightest parliamentary recruits. He served on the Standing Committee on Finance, Parliament’s principal watchdog over taxation, government revenue and the financial system. He was also a prominent figure in the DA’s campaign against the proposed VAT increase in 2025, serving as the party’s parliamentary point man and using his technical competence to challenge the Treasury in its own language.

Burke has a PhD in econometrics from Cambridge University, an MPhil in technology policy and a master’s degree in computer engineering. That combination made him an obvious choice as finance spokesperson. It also makes his fall from the finance benches especially damaging.

The South African Reserve Bank is investigating alleged exchange-control contraventions involving Kastelo, the fintech and cryptocurrency business Burke co-founded. The allegations concern transactions valued at about R4-billion. Burke denies wrongdoing. He says he left the company’s operations when he entered politics and took steps to recuse himself from parliamentary matters involving the Reserve Bank. No final finding has been made that either Burke or Kastelo broke the law.

The immediate political problem was nevertheless unavoidable. A politician cannot credibly oversee the Reserve Bank and the country’s financial system while the bank is investigating a company he founded and from which he may still benefit. Conflict-of-interest rules do not exist only to punish proven criminality. They protect institutions from the perception that private interests may influence public responsibilities.

The DA initially appeared inclined to defend Burke on the grounds that no competent authority had found him guilty. That was legally defensible but politically tone-deaf. Hill-Lewis’s leadership eventually made the correct decision — Burke was removed from the finance committee and replaced as finance spokesperson. But the delay allowed the ANC and other parties to portray the move as reluctant damage control rather than the automatic application of principle.

The matter is far from over. The Reserve Bank investigation continues. The ANC has called for a parliamentary ethics investigation and laid a criminal complaint. Questions remain about Burke’s financial interest in Kastelo, his declarations to Parliament and whether his recusals covered every relevant meeting.

The danger for the DA is that the Burke affair does not stand alone.

It follows controversy over Resolve Communications, the lobbying company founded by former DA leader Tony Leon. Former DA figures have alleged that Resolve used its political connections to secure access to DA ministers and advance the interests of private clients. Resolve has denied improper conduct. Daily Maverick has also reported overlaps between the parliamentary work of DA MP Kabelo Kgobisa-Ngcaba, a former Resolve executive, and the interests of Resolve clients campaigning for changes to SIM card regulation. No finding has been made that she was paid or instructed to pursue those issues.

But elections are rarely decided by the precision of lawyers. Voters respond to impressions and patterns.

Burke and Resolve risk creating the impression of a party in which commercially connected insiders enjoy privileged access to Parliament and government. That would be deeply damaging to a DA that has spent years attacking the ANC’s networks of political influence, state contracts and connected enrichment. The DA’s defence may be that its people are better qualified and its processes cleaner. But conflicts of interest do not become acceptable because the participants wear suits, possess advanced degrees or communicate through professional lobbying companies.

This does not mean Burke is corrupt or that Resolve broke the law. It means the DA must apply the same suspicion to relationships involving its own insiders that it applies to ANC politicians and politically connected businesspeople.

That standard matters especially because the DA has appointed itself Parliament’s ethics policeman. It has taken ministers to court, demanded resignations and accused the ANC of protecting compromised politicians. It is also free to continue supporting the Phala Phala impeachment process against President Ramaphosa.

Removing Burke actually strengthens the DA’s position on Phala Phala. It demonstrates that stepping aside from a sensitive responsibility is not the same as a declaration of guilt. The more difficult question is whether the DA will apply that principle consistently.

MK and the EFF cannot convincingly demand standards from Burke that they refuse to apply to their own leaders. But their hypocrisy is not a defence available to the DA. A party promising something better cannot measure itself against the lowest standard in Parliament.

Hill-Lewis is selling the DA as a government-in-waiting. His campaign asks voters to look at Cape Town, compare it with Johannesburg or Ekurhuleni, and choose competence over decay. That message could attract urban black voters frustrated by failing municipalities even when they remain suspicious of parts of the DA’s policy programme. For these voters, a functioning government can outweigh ideological differences.

But that bargain depends on trust. If the DA begins to look like another vehicle for connected insiders, voters will have less reason to overlook its positions on race, redress and inequality.

Burke may ultimately be cleared. Resolve may continue to insist it did nothing improper. But Hill-Lewis cannot wait for court judgments before protecting his party’s central political asset.

The DA’s good-governance brand is not self-sustaining. It must be defended most fiercely when doing so is inconvenient, embarrassing and costly to the party itself.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose spoke on the Mark Burke affair and what it means for the DA’s election campaign in last week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from the Financial Mail and Scrolla. 

Pictured above: Mark Burke.

Image source: @Our_DA

Eight years of the New Dawn ends at the ballot box, as Ramaphosa enters November weaker than ever, surrounded by Zuma, Phala Phala and a fractured alliance, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics. 

Cyril Ramaphosa enters the 4 November municipal elections weaker than at any point since he became ANC president.

The New Dawn is dead. The alliance is fractured. Jacob Zuma’s MK Party is advancing on ANC strongholds. Ramaphosa’s main lieutenant in KwaZulu-Natal has been compromised by evidence before the Madlanga Commission. And his Phala Phala impeachment battle is still alive.

The numbers are even more damning. The ANC won 57.5% in the 2019 national election, fell to about 46% in the 2021 municipal elections and collapsed to 40.18% in 2024. It has not recovered in a single election under Ramaphosa.

November will therefore be more than a contest for control of municipalities. It will be a referendum on eight years of the New Dawn — and on Ramaphosa’s promise to rescue the ANC from corruption, division and decline.

A poor result will not automatically remove him from the Union Buildings. But it could destroy what remains of his authority, accelerate the succession battle and leave him serving out his term as a lame-duck president.

This could be Ramaphosa’s Waterloo.

When he took over from Zuma in 2018, Ramaphosa offered moral relief after a decade of state capture. The language of the New Dawn, Thuma Mina and renewal persuaded voters that a respectable businessman with liberation credentials could clean up the state and restore the ANC. The party received 57.5% in 2019. It was already down from the 62.15% achieved under Zuma in 2014, but Ramaphosa’s personal appeal helped the party avoid a more severe punishment.

That was the high point.

In 2021, ANC support fell to about 46%, taking the party below 50% nationally for the first time. In 2024 it collapsed to 40.18% and lost its parliamentary majority. No election conducted under Ramaphosa has produced an ANC recovery. Each one has established a new electoral floor.

It would be inaccurate to describe his presidency as achieving nothing. His administration supported the Zondo Commission, restored some credibility to institutions damaged by state capture and introduced important reforms in electricity, logistics and public administration. Load shedding has eased and parts of the state are more stable than they were under Zuma.

But elections are not decided in government reports or at international investor conferences. They are decided by voters who cannot find work, businesses forced to provide their own water and electricity, and township families surrounded by sewage, potholes, crime and uncollected rubbish. The New Dawn promised ethical government and renewal. Instead, South Africans have watched commissions produce reports while politically connected officials remain in office. Ramaphosa may have repaired parts of the state. He has failed to restore public trust in the party controlling it.

He also enters this campaign without the political machinery that supported previous ANC presidents.

The SACP will contest the municipal elections independently and has been excluded from ANC campaign structures and candidate lists. The ANC has warned members who also belong to the SACP that they may not campaign against ANC candidates. Cosatu is trying to hold the alliance together, but loyalties inside the labour federation are divided. For the first time, an ANC president must campaign not only against opposition parties but against sections of the political machinery that once campaigned for the ANC.

The biggest threat comes from another former ally.

The MK Party is not simply an opposition party. It is a rival version of the ANC, built around Zuma, liberation history and resentment of Ramaphosa’s leadership. MK offers disillusioned ANC supporters a way to punish the current leadership without abandoning the political tradition with which they identify. The party destroyed the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal in 2024 and is now attempting to expand in Mpumalanga, Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. Its elevation of Duduzane Zuma may be designed to reach younger voters while preparing the movement for life beyond his father.

An angry voter does not need to believe MK will govern better. The voter needs only to believe the ANC deserves punishment.

Ramaphosa’s problems are particularly severe in KwaZulu-Natal. Neither he nor ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has demonstrated an ability to compete with Zuma’s emotional hold over significant parts of the province. Senzo Mchunu, who was supposed to be one of Ramaphosa’s strongest provincial lieutenants, has been seriously compromised by allegations before the Madlanga Commission — including interference in policing, the disbanding of an investigative team and sharing a confidential report in violation of protocol. Mchunu denies wrongdoing and the commission has not made final findings. But the ANC cannot deploy him as the face of Ramaphosa’s clean-government project while a judicial commission examines whether he undermined law enforcement.

Ramaphosa’s own claim to ethical leadership is again threatened by Phala Phala. The public impeachment hearings remain temporarily suspended while the Western Cape High Court considers his attempt to review and set aside the independent panel’s report. He has won time, not exoneration. The court battle could accompany him into the campaign — a president who promised accountability, fighting to prevent an impeachment inquiry from proceeding.

The ANC’s response is to rely again on Ramaphosa’s personal stature and the party’s liberation history.

But this is a municipal election. It should be fought on the records of local candidates who can point to clean audits, reliable water, repaired roads and growing local economies. The ANC has not made the excellence of its mayoral candidates the centre of its campaign. In many municipalities, it cannot campaign on a successful record.

The party therefore returns to its oldest argument: trust the ANC because it liberated you.

That appeal becomes weaker with every election. Millions of young voters were born after apartheid. They respect liberation history but do not experience it as an answer to unemployment, unaffordable transport or a broken sewer outside the family home. Liberation history explains why the ANC was trusted. It cannot indefinitely explain why it should continue to be trusted after the services stop working.

The ANC’s crisis is not a shortage of plans. Its new manifesto will probably promise professional municipalities, better-qualified officials, ring-fenced revenue and action against corruption. Its problem is that voters have heard all of this before. The crisis is the disappearance of reasons to believe the next plan will actually be implemented.

Ramaphosa arrived as the man who would save the ANC from Zuma. Eight years later, Zuma leads the movement taking ANC strongholds from him. The communists are campaigning separately. Organised labour is divided. His most important KZN lieutenant is compromised. His own impeachment process remains unresolved.

The New Dawn did not end in a dramatic sunset. It faded election by election.

November 4 will show whether Ramaphosa can finally arrest the decline — or whether this is the battlefield on which his authority inside the ANC disappears.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose will go deeper on the ANC’s November crisis and what the elections mean for Ramaphosa’s political future in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and the Financial Mail.

The DA is promising what the ANC promised and failed to deliver, and the question is whether different hands can fix the same broken system, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics. 

The Democratic Alliance launched its local government election manifesto on Saturday with a promise to rescue South Africa’s collapsing municipalities by bringing in the private sector.

Party leader Geordin Hill-Lewis says private companies will help municipalities provide water, electricity and waste services through transparent tender processes. The model will be introduced in municipalities won by the DA after the 4 November elections. The party promises public-private partnerships, professionally managed utilities, ring-fenced service revenue and performance-based contracts.

It sounds modern, practical and business-friendly. It also sounds remarkably similar to what the ANC has been promising and not implementing.

The ANC’s 2021 manifesto promised professional municipalities, reliable services, partnerships with business and action against corruption. The ANC-led government’s Operation Vulindlela is already promoting professionally managed water and electricity utilities, private-sector participation and the ring-fencing of municipal trading-service revenue.

The DA is therefore not proposing a radically different municipal economic model. It is offering many of the same instruments — private operators, tenders, ring-fenced income and outside expertise — with a promise that it will administer them more efficiently and honestly.

In other words, the DA is offering the same plumbing with a different plumber.

That does not necessarily make it a bad policy. South Africa’s municipalities require more capital and technical expertise than many of them currently possess. Water systems are leaking, electricity networks are collapsing and sewage plants are failing. Years of cadre deployment and the departure of experienced engineers have hollowed out municipal administrations. Private investment may be unavoidable if these systems are to be rebuilt quickly. The question is whether private participation will help municipalities regain their capacity or make them permanently dependent on contractors.

Critics are already saying the DA seeks to replace black tenderpreneurs with white companies. The DA campaigns against race-based procurement and wants to replace BEE preferences with a model based on economic disadvantage, job creation and value for money. But in an economy where established capital and technical capacity remain disproportionately white-owned, removing race-conscious preferences could redirect municipal spending towards established white businesses while being presented as colour-blind professionalism.

A DA municipality cannot simply replace national legislation with party policy. Until BEE laws change, its councils remain bound by the Constitution, procurement legislation and the MFMA. Transparent noncompliance would still be noncompliance.

What the DA says it opposes is tenderpreneurship — contracts inflated to reward political allies, specifications written for preferred bidders, payment for work never completed and officials who face no consequences. Its manifesto promises to publish tender awards, contract prices and premiums paid above the lowest qualifying bid, alongside strict performance agreements and greater disclosure of supplier performance.

These are welcome commitments. But transparency alone does not make a contract affordable or a contractor competent.

Johannesburg offers a sobering warning.

The city already relies extensively on private companies, yet its infrastructure continues to deteriorate. Johannesburg Water awarded a contract worth at least R263-million to two little-known companies to supply 70 water tankers. An amaBhungane investigation raised questions about the bidders and the peculiar calculations used to compare their prices. The High Court subsequently declared the tender invalid, although Johannesburg Water appealed.

The tanker economy reveals the danger of outsourcing municipal failure. When companies earn millions delivering emergency water, broken pipes and empty reservoirs become commercially valuable. The contractor makes money because the municipal system does not work. Failure is no longer merely a crisis. It becomes a business model.

This is the central weakness in the DA’s manifesto. It is easy to promise a partnership with the private sector. It is much harder to ensure that the municipality — and ultimately the resident — receives value for money.

A genuine public-private partnership transfers meaningful financial and operational risk to the private company. The contractor should be paid for delivering measurable outcomes, not simply for supplying equipment or hours. A badly constructed partnership is merely a bigger and longer tender. It can lock a municipality into inflated prices, poor service and dependence on a monopoly provider for decades.

The DA’s proposed pre-approved supplier panels also deserve scrutiny. Panels can reduce delays by allowing municipalities to select contractors from a vetted list. But they can also restrict competition and create a protected circle of companies that receive work repeatedly. A panel is only as clean as the officials who constitute it, allocate the work, approve price increases and verify that services were delivered.

Across Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, the DA’s programme is broadly consistent: stabilise finances, ring-fence water and electricity income, repair infrastructure, appoint skilled officials and bring in private capital where municipal capacity is inadequate.

But the DA cannot campaign as if it has never occupied the mayoral offices in these cities. It led Tshwane for much of the period after 2016 and headed administrations in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni after 2021. Coalition chaos disrupted those governments, but it must explain why its earlier periods in power did not leave these cities with stronger institutions — and how its new partnerships will differ from the outsourcing arrangements already consuming municipal budgets.

The GNU is also blurring the ideological lines between the two parties. The ANC has moved towards private power generation, private participation in rail and ports and private investment in water infrastructure. The DA, now sharing national power with the ANC, is embracing similar partnerships at municipal level. This does not mean the DA has adopted ANC policies. It may instead show that both parties have accepted the scale of the crisis and arrived at the same limited range of solutions.

The real election contest may therefore not be between public provision and privatisation, or even between competing policy models.

It will be a contest over credibility.

The ANC says it can renew itself and finally implement the reforms it has promised for years. The DA says the same tools will work if placed in cleaner and more capable hands.

That is a potentially persuasive offer. But if the DA cannot prevent its private partners from becoming the next tanker barons and tender millionaires, its municipal rescue plan will reproduce the system it claims it has come to replace.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose will go deeper on the DA’s municipal manifesto and whether private sector partnerships will actually fix South Africa’s broken cities in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and Currency. 

Pictured above: Geordin Hill-Lewis stage now sharing the party’s plan for towns and cities that work for all. 

Image source: @Our_DA

The Freedom Front Plus has discovered an unexpected political asset in Pieter Groenewald. Black admiration for his performance as Minister of Correctional Services has given the party attention it could never buy, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

The Freedom Front Plus has discovered an unexpected political asset in Pieter Groenewald.

Black admiration for his performance as Minister of Correctional Services has given the party attention it could never buy. But it remains unclear whether “Nangu umlungu” is the beginning of a multiracial political realignment or simply a social-media protest against the ANC.

Groenewald has done what no FF Plus campaign has managed in 32 years: he has made some black South Africans curious about an Afrikaner party.

His growing popularity reflects the emergence of a frustrated voter who is tired of excuses, blame-shifting, corruption and maladministration. This voter is becoming less interested in the race of a government leader and more interested in whether that leader can do the job.

For years, failures in government have been blamed on apartheid, budget shortages, uncooperative officials, hostile courts or unnamed forces opposed to transformation. Many of those explanations contain elements of truth. But they do not fix a pothole, keep the lights on or stop public money from being stolen.

Groenewald’s appeal comes from his forthrightness. He identifies a problem, tells the public what is wrong and explains what he is doing about it.

The prison bread scandal is a perfect example.

Correctional Services was paying as much as R24.50 for a loaf of bread — more than many consumers pay at a supermarket. One contractor supplying prisons did not even own a bakery. The contractor allegedly subcontracted the actual baking at about R15 a loaf and pocketed approximately R1-million a month without producing a single loaf.

Groenewald stopped the arrangement and accelerated the department’s self-sufficiency programme. Offenders now bake bread inside prison facilities at a reported cost of approximately R8 a loaf. Correctional Services operates 12 bakeries with another planned, and Groenewald says the department is approaching 97% self-sufficiency in bread. Its agricultural, manufacturing and food-production programmes saved taxpayers more than R200-million in the last financial year.

The department is also reducing its use of consultants. Spending fell from R119.3-million in 2024/25 to a projected R29.2-million in 2025/26. Prison escapes fell from 20 in 2023/24 to four in 2025/26. More than 2,300 officials faced disciplinary action in the past financial year.

This is not a complete turnaround. South African prisons remain overcrowded, understaffed and vulnerable to corruption and contraband. Tens of thousands of unsentenced detainees are awaiting trial. But politics is comparative. Voters do not compare a minister with perfection. They compare him with the excuses, scandals and drift they see elsewhere.

This explains the phrase “Nangu umlungu” — here is the white man — which has spread through social media and even inspired music. It is not necessarily an expression of racial submission. It is often a sarcastic rebuke to black leaders who promised liberation but delivered tenderpreneurs.

The voter saying “Nangu umlungu” may not support Afrikaner nationalism, Orania or the FF Plus’s opposition to affirmative action and black economic empowerment. That voter may simply be saying: here is someone doing the work.

That distinction will define the FF Plus campaign before the 4 November local elections.

The party has historically performed better in municipal elections than its small national footprint suggests. In 2016 it received about 229,000 votes, winning just under 0.8% and about 67 council seats. In 2021 its support surged to approximately 549,000 votes, or 2.34%, and about 221 councillors — more than doubling its vote and tripling its representation, largely by taking Afrikaans voters from the DA. But in 2024 it won only 218,850 national votes, or 1.36%, and fell from 10 to six National Assembly seats. Many voters had returned to the DA.

This is the FF Plus contradiction. It has a history of local-election breakthroughs but remains vulnerable when national voters consolidate around the DA.

There are warning signs for the DA nonetheless. In Tshwane’s Ward 57, covering parts of Centurion and Lyttelton, the FF Plus increased from 16% in 2021 to more than 44% in a January 2026 by-election. The DA survived by about 270 votes.

The FF Plus is strongest in Afrikaans suburbs and towns in Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Limpopo, North West, the Free State and the Northern Cape. It cannot replace the DA nationally, but it can frustrate DA growth.

Another unexpected weakness for the DA is the handling of the foot-and-mouth disease crisis. John Steenhuisen’s management of the outbreak cost him the agriculture portfolio. By the time he was removed, the outbreak had reportedly affected more than 297,000 cattle and resulted in the culling of more than 120,000 animals.

Behind those numbers are farming families who lost livestock, income and years of breeding investment. Farm organisations accused Steenhuisen of reacting too slowly, insisting on central government control of vaccines and failing to work urgently enough with private veterinary structures. Changing the minister does not restore culled cattle, lost income or closed markets. Some farmers who traditionally supported the DA may decide to punish it in November.

The foot-and-mouth crisis also feeds a wider conservative complaint. Some white conservative voters believe the DA has become too accommodating towards the ANC and too reluctant to confront it over racial policy, rural security and farm attacks. The FF Plus has been far more consistent in presenting itself as the defender of minority concerns — speaking forcefully about farm attacks, property rights, language and community safety.

This gives the FF Plus two very different routes to growth. Groenewald’s performance may attract black voters who are tired of incompetence and prepared to reward excellence regardless of where it comes from. At the same time, anger over foot-and-mouth disease and the DA’s GNU compromises may return conservative Afrikaans voters to the FF Plus.

The danger for the DA is that Groenewald is using exactly the same argument it uses to promote Cape Town and the Western Cape: judge us by what we do, not by what our opponents say about us.

The FF Plus still faces a racial and ideological ceiling. Black admiration for one minister does not automatically translate into support for a party built around minority rights. Social-media applause is not a secret ballot.

But the political meaning of “Nangu umlungu” should not be underestimated.

It tells the ANC that liberation history is losing its power to excuse present failure. It tells the DA that it does not own the constituency for clean and competent government. And it tells the FF Plus that its most effective campaign among black voters may not be a new slogan or manifesto.

It may simply be one minister doing his job.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose will go deeper on the “Nangu umlungu” phenomenon and what Pieter Groenewald’s rise means for South African politics ahead of November in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and Currency. Hear more from Zukile on the Sharp Sharp podcast, where he and Rob Rose unpack the week in South African politics every Thursday.

Pictured above: Pieter Groenewald. 

Image source: Freedom Front

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After the 4 November local government elections, Julius Malema and Jacob Zuma may hold the balance of power in some of South Africa’s biggest and most economically important cities, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics. 

That prospect should worry ratepayers, investors and political parties alike.

The Economic Freedom Fighters and uMkhonto weSizwe Party could jointly command between 20% and 25% in some contested councils. If neither the ANC nor the DA wins an outright majority, Malema and Zuma may be able to decide who becomes mayor, who controls the municipal budget and which parties receive the most powerful portfolios.

But the two men who could become the country’s most influential municipal kingmakers are potentially the worst coalition partners available.

Both lead highly centralised parties built around the authority and political fortunes of their founders. Neither organisation has a credible record of municipal government. Both favour aggressive populism over the compromises required to keep water flowing, repair roads, collect revenue and maintain investment-grade cities.

There is an alternative. The ANC and DA should take the cooperation they established in the Government of National Unity and extend it into hung municipalities.

The two parties disagree profoundly on transformation, economic policy, property rights and the role of the state. They will remain electoral rivals. But they share a basic commitment to constitutional government, institutional continuity and an economy capable of financing public services. That common ground is more important than ideological purity in municipalities approaching collapse.

After the 2021 election, 66 councils were hung. That number is unlikely to decline in November and may increase as MK, the Patriotic Alliance, the IFP, ActionSA and smaller parties fragment the vote further. At least five metros — Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay — are highly likely to be hung. Mangaung could join them.

These cities do not have another five years to waste.

Johannesburg has had eight mayors since 2019. Governments have been assembled and removed through deals involving parties with tiny electoral mandates. Kabelo Gwamanda became mayor despite Al Jama-ah holding only three of the council’s 270 seats. His appointment was not an expression of voters’ will. It was the result of larger parties being unable to agree on which of them should govern.

While politicians fought over positions, Johannesburg’s water, electricity and road infrastructure deteriorated. Residents were left with dry taps, collapsing traffic lights, power interruptions and rising municipal bills. Similar instability has affected Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Nelson Mandela Bay. Mayors are removed before their programmes can be implemented. Municipal budgets become bargaining instruments in coalition negotiations.

This is not democracy working. It is fragmentation paralysing government.

The ANC and DA together could end most of this instability.

Based on their 2021 results, the two parties had a combined vote of approximately 60% in Johannesburg, 67% in Tshwane, 67% in Ekurhuleni, 68% in eThekwini, 79% in Nelson Mandela Bay and 76% in Mangaung. The numbers will shift in November, particularly in eThekwini where MK has reordered KwaZulu-Natal politics. But an ANC-DA combination will still command clear governing majorities in all six metros.

A simple principle could govern these coalitions: the party with the most council seats takes the mayoralty, while the second party receives the deputy mayoralty, speakership and a proportional share of portfolio positions. The agreement should not be renegotiated separately in every city behind closed doors. The parties should negotiate a national framework establishing transparent rules for municipalities where their combined vote produces a stable majority.

That framework should include a binding five-year programme, merit-based appointments, independent supply-chain controls, public performance targets and dispute-resolution procedures. Residents should know before they vote that an ANC-DA coalition would be based on the election result, not on secret negotiations over tenders and portfolios.

The Government of National Unity has already demonstrated the strategic value of this kind of cooperation. Whatever its internal tensions, it prevented national power from becoming dependent on either the EFF or MK after the 2024 election.

The same principle worked in KwaZulu-Natal. The IFP, ANC, DA and NFP combined to keep the provincial government functioning despite MK emerging as the largest party. Without that agreement, Zuma’s party would have used its 37 seats and its EFF alliance to dominate the province. Instead, the IFP’s Thami Ntuli became premier and a multiparty executive was formed around parties prepared to operate within the constitutional framework.

Municipalities need the same firewall.

This is not an argument that the EFF and MK should be excluded because their policies are radical. Voters who support them are entitled to representation. The danger lies in handing control of struggling cities to parties whose leadership cultures, policy promises and coalition conduct offer little assurance of stable administration.

The EFF has almost 1,000 councillors and commands roughly 10% of the vote, yet it has not won outright control of a single municipality. MK has never governed a municipality, province or national department under its own name. Its structures remain bound to Zuma’s personal authority, while many of its prominent figures emerged from the networks associated with the worst years of state capture.

An EFF-MK bloc could be large enough to bring down governments but not disciplined enough to run them.

The ANC and DA are not innocent bystanders in the municipal crisis. The ANC presided over cadre deployment, corruption and administrative decay in many councils. The DA has contributed to instability through rigid coalition management and an inability to sustain relationships with smaller partners.

An ANC-DA pact would work only if both abandoned the belief that cooperation requires the other party’s surrender. The ANC would have to accept professional administration, stronger financial controls and consequences for corruption. The DA would have to accept that transformation and the extension of services to historically neglected communities are central functions of municipal government, not optional ideological concessions.

Such an agreement would not end political competition. It would move that competition away from motions of no confidence and towards measurable performance. The party running the finance portfolio could be judged on revenue collection. The party responsible for infrastructure could be judged on water losses, road repairs and capital spending. Residents would finally be able to compare results.

Malema and Zuma may emerge from November as powerful kingmakers. But South Africa’s biggest cities should not be forced to depend on them.

The ANC and DA already possess the combined electoral mandate to govern these metros. Their duty is to use it.

A grand municipal coalition would be uncomfortable, argumentative and imperfect. But five years of predictable government would be vastly better than another term of collapsing coalitions, proxy mayors and political looting.

South Africa does not need another experiment in municipal chaos. It needs its two largest parties to accept that, in the country’s broken cities, stable government has become more important than permanent political warfare.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose discuss whether an ANC-DA grand municipal coalition is realistic and what it would take to make it work in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and Currency. Hear more from Zukile on the Sharp Sharp podcast, where he and Rob Rose unpack the week in South African politics every Wednesday.

Pictured above: Geordin Hill-Lewis and Cyril Ramaphosa. 

Image source: Geordin Hill-Lewis/X

Helen Zille is running the strongest campaign in Johannesburg, but she is not yet winning the coalition war, Zukile Majova writes in Real Politics. 

The DA can finish first on 4 November and still watch an ANC-led alliance elect the mayor. That is the paradox shaping Johannesburg’s municipal election. Winning the election and winning the mayoralty are no longer the same thing.

Coalition politics has changed everything.

Johannesburg is heading into another hung council. No single party appears capable of securing the 136 seats needed for an outright majority in the 270-seat council. The city’s next government will almost certainly be decided after election day, when parties begin negotiating behind closed doors.

The DA enters the race with momentum, but also with unfinished business.

In 2016, the party came within touching distance of taking Johannesburg outright after winning close to 480,000 votes. Five years later, that support had collapsed to about 240,000 proportional representation votes. Some voters stayed home. Many defected to Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA. Others drifted to smaller parties.

For Zille to achieve her ambition, the DA must recover much of that lost support. That means persuading former DA voters that returning to the party offers the best chance of changing Johannesburg’s fortunes, while expanding into communities where the party has historically struggled.

The DA’s biggest challenge is no longer defeating the ANC. It is rebuilding the broad coalition of voters that briefly made outright victory seem possible almost a decade ago.

The political landscape, however, has shifted dramatically since then.

The biggest new variable is Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party. MK did not exist during the 2021 local government elections. Yet in the 2024 provincial election, the party won more than 172,000 votes in Johannesburg, largely at the ANC’s expense.

At first glance, that appears to benefit the DA by weakening the ANC. But the reality is more complicated. Every new party in the council makes coalition negotiations more complex. MK may reduce the ANC’s vote share while simultaneously increasing the number of parties available for an anti-DA coalition after the election.

That is why this contest cannot be understood simply as a race between the DA and the ANC. It is a contest between competing coalition blocs.

The by-election results since 2021 reinforce this picture. The DA remains exceptionally strong in its traditional suburban heartlands, winning overwhelming majorities in wards across the northern suburbs. But outside those strongholds, progress has been harder.

The breakthrough in Evaton earlier this year, where the DA narrowly won a township ward in Emfuleni, suggested that the party can attract black working and middle-class voters frustrated by collapsing public services. But one victory does not signal a realignment. More telling is what has happened in Johannesburg itself. Despite holding its suburban base comfortably, the DA has not won a single Johannesburg by-election from another party since the 2021 municipal elections.

Another party has.

The Patriotic Alliance has quietly become one of the biggest winners of the coalition era, taking wards from both the ANC and the DA and steadily increasing its bargaining power. It may not emerge as one of Johannesburg’s largest parties. But in a fragmented council, even a handful of seats could determine who becomes mayor.

This is precisely why Zille’s task extends beyond campaigning. She must also convince potential coalition partners that a DA-led administration would be worth supporting.

That may prove more difficult than winning votes.

Relations between the DA and ActionSA remain strained after years of unstable coalition governments in Johannesburg and Tshwane. Smaller parties have frequently accused the DA of adopting a dominant approach to coalition management. Those tensions contributed to the revolving door of mayors that has characterised Johannesburg over the past five years.

The ANC has shown greater flexibility. Its alliances with the EFF, Al Jama-ah and smaller parties have often been unstable, but they have repeatedly achieved one objective: preventing the DA from governing South Africa’s biggest metros. MK now introduces another possible partner into that equation.

For the DA, therefore, becoming the biggest party may only be the first hurdle. The second is assembling a stable governing majority before its rivals do.

That brings the focus back to turnout.

The DA’s clearest route to power is not persuading large numbers of ANC supporters to switch. It is motivating former DA supporters who stayed away in 2021 to return to the polls. If those voters come back in significant numbers, the DA moves closer to governing. If they stay home, coalition arithmetic begins to favour everyone else.

Johannesburg’s election is often described as a referendum on service delivery. It is certainly that. Residents are living with failing infrastructure, water shortages, electricity interruptions and deteriorating roads.

But politically, this election is about something bigger.

It is a referendum on whether coalition politics can produce a stable government.

Zille is presenting herself as the experienced administrator who restored confidence in Cape Town and the Western Cape. Her campaign is built on competence rather than ideology. Whether that message resonates beyond the DA’s traditional support base remains the defining question of the campaign.

One thing already seems clear. Johannesburg is unlikely to produce a decisive winner. It will almost certainly produce a complicated negotiation. The DA could finish first. The ANC could finish second. MK could reshape the balance of power. The Patriotic Alliance and other smaller parties could become kingmakers.

When the votes are counted, the battle for Johannesburg may only just be beginning.

That is why Helen Zille can win the election and still lose City Hall.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose go deeper on the Johannesburg race and what Helen Zille actually needs to win power in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and Currency. Hear more from Zukile on the Sharp Sharp podcast, where he and Rob Rose unpack the week in South African politics every Wednesday.

Pictured above: Helen Zille. 

Image source: @Our_DA

South Africa has spent years regulating political donations. It has done almost nothing to regulate political influence. That blind spot may become the biggest threat to local democracy, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics. 

Voters will go to the polls in November believing they are electing mayors, councils and local governments. But recent experience suggests that election day is no longer when power is decided. It is merely when the next round of negotiations begins.

The real contest increasingly takes place after the votes have been counted. It happens in hotels, boardrooms, private homes and lawyers’ offices, where coalition agreements are negotiated, mayoral candidates selected, executive positions allocated and political futures traded. The people sitting around those tables are often not councillors. Many have never stood for public office. Yet they can determine who governs South Africa’s largest cities.

That should worry every voter.

Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni have become synonymous with revolving-door mayors. Since the 2021 local government elections, these cities have cycled through multiple administrations as coalition agreements have collapsed and been rebuilt. The instability has become so familiar that South Africans have started treating it as normal politics. It is not. It is evidence that power is gradually moving away from elected institutions towards informal networks of negotiators, donors, advisers and political intermediaries who operate with almost no public accountability.

There is nothing wrong with lobbying itself. Every functioning democracy allows businesses, trade unions and civil society organisations to advocate for their interests. The problem is invisible influence.

Former politicians can move seamlessly into public affairs and advisory roles while retaining significant political influence. Coalition negotiators can help determine governments without disclosing who they represent beyond the parties in the room. That gap matters because politics has changed.

The watershed moment came with the ANC’s 2017 leadership contest.

The CR17 campaign fundamentally changed the business model of internal South African politics. Reports at the time placed the campaign’s fundraising at over R200 million — unprecedented in an ANC leadership race. Who assembled that network? Which business leaders encouraged others to contribute? What expectations accompanied those donations? Ramaphosa’s consistent position has been that campaign structures deliberately insulated him from direct knowledge of many donors. That may have been intended to avoid conflicts of interest. But it also illustrates a deeper democratic problem. If a candidate does not know who is financing the campaign that will make him president, who is responsible for ensuring those financiers do not expect privileged access afterwards?

This extends well beyond the ANC.

The Democratic Alliance has built its political identity around transparency and clean governance. Yet it too is confronting uncomfortable questions about informal power. The public disagreement between John Steenhuisen and Geordin Hill-Lewis over an alleged understanding concerning Steenhuisen’s future after the leadership contest is significant not because private political agreements are illegal, but because they raise questions about how leadership decisions are reached. If major political agreements are negotiated privately before delegates vote, how should members know whether leadership contests remain genuinely open?

The debate surrounding former DA leader Tony Leon points to an even broader challenge. Leon remains one of South Africa’s most influential political figures and played an important role in negotiating the DA’s participation in the Government of National Unity. He also chairs a public affairs firm representing commercial clients. Leon has strongly denied any improper conduct and there is no evidence he has acted unlawfully. But the institutional question remains. Should South Africa have clearer rules governing former political leaders who retain political influence while representing private interests seeking government decisions?

These are not questions about individual integrity. They are questions about institutional design.

The problem becomes most acute in coalition politics. Hung councils have created an entirely new political marketplace. Every fractured council produces demand for negotiators, strategists, lawyers and intermediaries capable of bringing parties together or pulling them apart. Business forums seeking procurement influence, politically connected contractors, factional organisers and private advisers all have reasons to remain close to coalition negotiations. Most act entirely within the law. Yet the public seldom knows who participated in discussions that ultimately determine who becomes mayor or who controls billion-rand municipal budgets.

South Africa should not criminalise lobbying. The government benefits from hearing business, labour and civil society perspectives. But transparency must catch up with political reality.

South Africans know how to remove a councillor, a mayor or a Member of Parliament through elections. They have no equivalent mechanism for removing the unelected people who increasingly help decide who occupies those offices.

That is why the local government elections matter far beyond who wins Johannesburg or Tshwane.

The larger question is whether elections still determine who governs or whether they merely begin a second, largely invisible contest in which political influence and private negotiations ultimately outweigh the will of voters.

If that second contest remains unregulated, South Africa risks producing leaders who do not arrive in office captured by private interests after taking power. They may arrive already carrying political obligations accumulated long before the first ballot is cast.

That is not simply a problem for one party. It is becoming one of the defining governance challenges of South African democracy.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose go deeper on South Africa’s coalition crisis and who is really pulling the strings in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and Currency. Hear more from Zukile on the Sharp Sharp podcast, where he and Rob Rose unpack the week in South African politics every Wednesday.

Pictured above: An empty council chamber. 

Image source: ActionSA

As South Africa edges toward another flashpoint over immigration, one uncomfortable truth cannot be ignored. The loudest anger is not coming from the leafy suburbs of Cape Town, Durban and Sandton, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics. 

The loudest noise is coming from townships and villages where unemployment is high, public services are collapsing and every opportunity feels like a fight for survival.

For many poor South Africans, immigration is not an abstract political debate. It is something they experience every day.

Walk through many townships in Johannesburg, Durban or Cape Town and the pattern is clear. Foreign nationals are heavily represented in spaza shops, informal trading, delivery services, e-hailing and hospitality. Around mining communities, illegal mining syndicates — many involving foreign nationals — have brought violence, extortion and fear.

Whether every perception is accurate is almost beside the point. These communities are responding to what they see in front of them, while the state appears unable or unwilling to enforce its own immigration laws.

The people least affected by this reality are often the quickest to dismiss it. Families in affluent suburbs are not competing for entry-level jobs, RDP houses, places in overcrowded public schools or space in government clinics. Their children attend private schools. They use private healthcare. Their security is paid for. Immigration is largely an intellectual debate for them.

For township residents it is not a debate. It is a daily reality.

Every day they stand in longer queues at clinics. They compete for casual work that disappears within minutes. They watch small businesses struggle against fierce competition. They live in overcrowded settlements where housing shortages worsen every year.

The frustration grows because many South Africans believe the rules are not being enforced.

South Africa allows many visitors to enter legally for limited periods. Most comply with the law. But others overstay their permits or work without the authorisation required by law. Weak enforcement, corruption and slow immigration systems mean many remain in the country for years. A legal arrival becomes an illegal stay, while employers willing to ignore the law gain access to cheaper labour.

Universities face similar pressure. Every year thousands of South African matriculants spend one or two years trying to secure a place because there are simply not enough spaces. When people believe immigration rules are not being enforced properly, it fuels the perception that citizens are being pushed to the back of the queue.

Crime deepens those fears. Most foreign nationals are law-abiding people trying to earn a living. But criminal syndicates involved in illegal mining, drug trafficking, counterfeit goods and human trafficking have damaged public confidence. Communities near illegal mining operations have seen armed gangs take control of entire areas while the state struggles to respond.

South Africans are often told these concerns amount to xenophobia. That is too simple.

Violence against foreign nationals is wrong. Innocent people should never be attacked because of where they were born. But rejecting violence does not mean pretending there is no problem. A country has both the right and the responsibility to control its borders, enforce its immigration laws and decide who may live and work within them.

South Africa has failed on all three counts.

For years the government has spoken about Pan-African solidarity while allowing corruption, weak border management and a broken asylum system to undermine public confidence. Instead of fixing those failures, politicians too often dismiss public anger as ignorance or prejudice. That response has only widened the gap between government and the communities carrying the greatest burden.

South Africa is not alone in wrestling with these tensions. Across Europe, immigration has become one of the defining political issues of our time. In the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, voters have backed parties promising tougher immigration laws. Concerns about pressure on jobs, housing, healthcare and public services — alongside organised crime — have driven that shift. South Africa’s circumstances are far more severe because unemployment and poverty are so much higher. But the underlying question is the same: how do you manage immigration in a way that is lawful, orderly and fair to citizens and arrivals alike?

The answer to South Africa’s crisis is not mob justice. It is not intimidation or attacks on foreign nationals.

It is a government that finally enforces its own laws. That means secure borders, faster decisions on asylum applications, action against visa overstayers, deportation of those who remain unlawfully, prosecution of employers who hire illegal workers and a determined fight against corruption inside the Department of Home Affairs.

Most of all, it means recognising that poor South Africans are not imagining the pressures they face.

The rich experience immigration as a political argument. The poor experience it as another queue, another missed job, another overcrowded classroom and another day wondering whether their own government still puts its citizens first.

Until the state regains control of its immigration system, that frustration will only continue to grow.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose go deeper on South Africa’s immigration crisis and what the government must actually do about it in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and Currency. Hear more from Zukile on the Sharp Sharp podcast, where he and Rob Rose unpack the week in South African politics every Wednesday.

Pictured above: A queue outside a Home Affairs office. 

Image source: Democratic Alliance

You may have noticed last week’s Real Politics column arrived on a Monday. That was no accident. From now on, Zukile Majova’s weekly column will land every Monday morning.

Geordin Hill-Lewis may have inherited the most important job in South African opposition politics, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics. 

The Cape Town mayor’s election as Federal Leader of the Democratic Alliance comes at a decisive moment for the party and the country. At 39, he could lead the DA through the next two election cycles, including the 4 November 2026 local government elections and the 2029 national election.

His challenge is easy to describe but hard to solve: how does the DA turn anger with the ANC into votes for itself?

For more than a decade, South Africa’s largest opposition party has been stuck in a narrow band. It won 22.2% of the national vote in 2014, 20.8% in 2019 and 21.8% in 2024. Over the same period, the ANC fell sharply from 57.5% in 2019 to just over 40% in 2024. On paper, this should have been the DA’s moment. In practice, it was not.

The ANC’s losses flowed elsewhere. The EFF built a national base. The MK Party surged in KwaZulu-Natal. The Patriotic Alliance grew in coloured communities. ActionSA appealed to urban voters who wanted change but were not ready to vote DA.

The lesson is uncomfortable. South Africans who are unhappy with the ANC do not automatically choose the DA.

This is the puzzle Hill-Lewis must solve.

For years, the DA believed good governance would eventually overcome voter scepticism. It built its brand around clean administration, infrastructure, financial discipline and fighting corruption. In Cape Town and the Western Cape, that approach has produced durable electoral success. But competence has not become broad national appeal.

Many voters respect DA-run governments while remaining reluctant to vote for the party. That suggests the main obstacle is not policy. It is identity, trust and belonging.

The DA still faces a perception problem among many black South Africans who do not see it as a party that naturally represents their interests. Whether fair or not, that remains one of its biggest barriers to growth.

Hill-Lewis enters this role aware of that reality — and aware that he personally embodies many of the qualities critics associate with the DA. He is white, English-speaking and from Cape Town. Those qualities have helped him as mayor. National politics demands more.

Modern voters want leaders who connect emotionally as well as intellectually. South Africa has repeatedly rewarded those who make voters feel seen. Nelson Mandela did it with grace and moral authority. Jacob Zuma did it through cultural fluency and accessibility. Gayton McKenzie has turned personality into political capital.

Hill-Lewis is respected for discipline, intelligence and administrative ability. To break the DA’s ceiling, he needs to become a different kind of political figure — as comfortable in Soweto, Umlazi and Mdantsane as in Cape Town’s suburbs and boardrooms. That is not about image management. It is about trust.

His recent visit to King Misuzulu kaZwelithini was therefore more than a courtesy call. It signalled an understanding that culture, identity and traditional leadership remain powerful forces in South African politics. KwaZulu-Natal will be among the fiercest electoral battlegrounds in the 2026 local government elections. The DA cannot grow there without building relationships with communities that look to traditional leaders for guidance.

The same applies to powerful religious institutions. Churches such as the ZCC, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and the Nazareth Baptist Church command enormous influence in communities the DA wants to reach. Engagement with them should not be treated as theatre. It is a recognition of the social networks that shape public opinion.

Consistency will be the test. One visit to a king makes headlines. Building lasting relationships with traditional leaders, churches and rural voters is what persuades sceptics that the DA is serious about becoming a truly national party.

The second test is coalition politics.

Since the 2021 local government elections, the DA’s coalition record has been mixed. Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni became warnings rather than showcases. Mayors came and went. Alliances collapsed. Public trust in coalition governance weakened. Hill-Lewis may need a different coalition philosophy. The age of smaller parties simply falling in line behind a dominant partner is ending. Successful coalitions will require negotiation, patience and long-term relationship building.

The Government of National Unity has reinforced this lesson. Imperfect as it is, it has shown that voters and markets respond positively when rivals cooperate to provide stability.

The third challenge lies closer to home. The Patriotic Alliance has expanded among coloured voters, a constituency that formed part of the DA’s electoral backbone. Its growth may not immediately threaten DA control of Cape Town, but it has introduced a new competitive dynamic. Political dominance often erodes slowly before it collapses suddenly. Hill-Lewis cannot only chase new voters. He must defend existing support.

Ultimately, his success will not be measured by whether he protects the DA’s traditional 20% base. It will be measured by whether he expands it.

The path to 25% or 30% national support is unlikely to come from converting loyal ANC voters. It will come from younger voters, urban professionals, first-time voters and politically homeless South Africans who are dissatisfied with every major party. That requires a broader offer.

The DA has spent years explaining why the ANC is failing. Hill-Lewis must now explain why the DA understands the aspirations of a changing South Africa.

He has time, a Cape Town record and a long political runway. What remains uncertain is whether he can persuade dissatisfied voters that the DA is not just an alternative government, but a political home.

That question will shape his legacy — and South Africa’s political future.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose go deeper on the DA’s leadership change and what Geordin Hill-Lewis must do to break the party’s 20% ceiling in this week’s edition of Sharp Sharp, the podcast from Scrolla and Currency. Hear more from Zukile on the Sharp Sharp podcast, where he and Rob Rose unpack the week in South African politics every Wednesday.

Pictured above: Geordin Hill-Lewis. 

Image source: @Our_DA