Can the next generation of leaders provide a growth formula for the DA? It is facing another pivotal moment in its history, but few in the party seem to really grasp it, including its top leaders.
The 1990s transition from the old Democratic Party (in turn a descendant of the old Progressive Federal Party in white politics, originally the Progressive Party) to the DA marked one such point. The DA’s support grew from 1.7% nationally to 9.6% between 1994 and 1999.
Another key moment was the halting of its slow but steady rise in support in 2019, when its support dropped for the first time in the democratic era, from 22.2% to 20.7%.
The municipal election picture differs slightly. Defections resulted in a decline in its support from 22% in 2000 to about 16% in 2006. It grew slightly in the 2011 and 2016 local polls from 24% to 27%, but splintering caused support to drop again in 2021 to 22%.
There is a sense that the DA keeps hitting a ceiling in voter support, then falling back and rebuilding. It has not been a “white party” for many years, and its 20%-plus share of the vote must indicate support from black African voters.
But it has yet to demonstrate that it can attract support away from the ANC, and retain a critical mass of black voters. A chance to show that it can do so may be approaching. It may be the last such opportunity if it is not taken.
The DA is heading to a federal congress in April next year, an internal elective gathering. There are many new political parties on the block — 472 are registered, according to the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s latest count. Very few are adept at internal democracy.
Of the larger parties, the DA is arguably the strongest, given the ANC’s penchant for wasting and stealing money and the EFF’s lack of coherent policy and dependence on the personality politics of Julius Malema. The MK Party is not even bothering with pretence about internal democracy — its ruler, Jacob Zuma, has publicly declared that the party will not be electing leaders.
The backdrop to the DA congress has shifted significantly since its last elective conference in 2023. The electorate has pushed the country into coalition territory.
Back in 2023, the DA was the leader of the opposition. Today, it’s a party in government, though it still tries to oppose. Back then, it held no sway over any area of delivery by the national government. Today, it controls basic education, home affairs, agriculture, communications and public works.
So much has changed that it is easy to overlook the fact that the DA did not grow in the 2024 general election. The ANC bled support almost entirely to MK. The DA lost 115,676 votes nationally, after also declining in support in the last local government election in 2021.
This is why the DA’s April 2026 electoral congress is so important. It marks another stage in the party’s history that will determine its future beyond the 2026 local election and the 2029 national election.
DA leader John Steenhuisen has widely been hailed, alongside federal executive chair Helen Zille, for steering the DA through the rebuilding of the party, the GNU negotiations and their aftermath.
Longtime DA observer and elections analyst Gareth van Onselen says change for the sake of change is unhelpful. “I think there was a role for Steenhuisen and Zille, driven largely by a lack of options to stabilise the party. This has been done and it was done by reverting to what the DA knows best: oppositional politics in substance and style.
“But since then, things have changed, the DA has flatlined electorally and it has entered the GNU. What does it want or need now?” he asks. It needs to behave like a party in government and it needs to be led by people who care about national issues (this does not mean they should not care about offering opposition).
“To my mind, this cannot be delivered by Steenhuisen and Zille. It needs a new leader and federal chair. Geordin Hill-Lewis, Ashor Sarupen and Cilliers Brink are exceptionally good options on this front. Importantly, both positions need to change. They work hand in glove — the leader sets and embodies the vision of the party, the federal chair runs the operations designed to realise that plan.
“So both must be aligned. In a nutshell, the DA is limited by its brand, and its leaders who embody that brand. It needs to change the way it is experienced, it has the leaders to authentically do that, and it should choose them.”
This is where it gets tricky. Hill-Lewis, mayor of DA-run Cape Town, tells the FM candidly that he will not challenge Steenhuisen. “I’ve definitely thought about the leadership and it is something I’d like to do. But I’ve said very clearly and publicly that I certainly will not contest against John. If he wants to stand again, he’ll have my full support.”
Steenhuisen declined an interview and did not to respond to written questions, but in June, speaking at the party’s 25th birthday celebrations in Cape Town, flanked by Hill-Lewis, he signalled his intention to stand for re-election. “I hope the conference is not going to elect a new leader. I hope it is going to elect me,” he said.
There is no groundswell of opposition to Steenhuisen standing for re-election, though structures canvassed by the FM indicate that there are some concerns, except in his home province KwaZulu-Natal and in the Free State.
A key question relates to Steenhuisen’s leadership in relation to the GNU. “The first problem,” a senior DA leader tells the FM, “is that the GNU deal was a bad one. Yes, you could argue that the DA had no choice, but it does not change the fact that it has no influence on policy and on growing the economy.”
It did not help that the national DA leadership failed to intervene meaningfully when negotiations to form a government in Gauteng collapsed. The ANC’s Panyaza Lesufi went on to form a minority government with the IFP, Rise Mzansi and the Patriotic Alliance (PA).
Another concern cited by some senior DA figures is that Steenhuisen has a ministerial portfolio (agriculture), which means he reports to President Cyril Ramaphosa. He is subjected to cabinet discipline, while at the same time has to ensure his party retains its own voice.
“We have to ask,” one insider tells the FM, “whether the leader of the party should be inside or outside the GNU.”
Zille dismisses this, arguing that opposition leaders work for their opponents in coalition governments across the world, and South Africa is no exception. And the stakes are high. Another senior party leader says the DA has a chance to rebuild the centre of South African politics, and it should not squander it by missing the moment.
The party political environment is more fluid and unpredictable than at any time since the advent of democracy in 1994.
According to analysis by Institute of Race Relations CEO John Endres, the ANC’s self-proclaimed “strategic setback” — its huge 17 percentage point decline in support in the 2024 national election — looks set to be more permanent than it expected. It is the dominant partner in coalitions in Joburg and Tshwane and so is likely to be held responsible by many supporters for chronically poor service delivery.
The implication of Endres’s analysis is that if the DA fails “to strike while the iron is hot” it may never again find conditions so favourable for its growth.
“The ANC is in a very tricky spot. We’ve been noticing many areas where it is under pressure. The sense of people’s belief in the ANC is draining away and that is a far more dangerous development than many other things that could happen.
“For the past 30 years, people accepted the authority of the ANC. Its decisions moved markets and shaped society. People are now so disgruntled that they’re withdrawing that approval from the ANC and that’s happening very broadly.”
Endres argues that the ANC’s failure to grow the economy and create jobs will prevent it from reversing the downward electoral trend. “Look at the countries that are producing growth, and do what those countries are doing. We are optimistic about South Africa. We think the potential is huge. But you’ve got to take the brakes off.”
Endres does not believe that the DA needs to do that much to benefit from the ANC’s current state. “It’s time for the DA to be relatively unexciting. The sweet spot for the DA is inside the GNU, but standing up to the ANC.” However, he sees the possibility of an ANC/MK/EFF tie-up in the medium term, with further damage to the economy.
For Zille, the ANC’s rapid unravelling is no surprise.
“Of course we’re aware it’s a momentous moment, but it’s been coming for 30 years. It didn’t just miraculously appear, it’s been worked for systematically [by the DA]. Election after election, with a really good strategy.”
She argues that all politics is local — this is where the DA started, and this is where its growth will come from.
“I'm not going to predict anything boldly, but there’s a chance, maybe an outside chance, that the DA will be the biggest party in most of the metros. Now if you have an executive mayor who then manages to fix a lot of things, then people start saying: ‘Crumbs, apartheid wasn’t brought back and now at least we have water and electricity and the potholes are being fixed.’”
Zille is arguably unique in our current politics, with a proven administrative track record as former mayor of Cape Town and premier of the Western Cape. She has just been through an interview process to be the DA’s mayoral candidate in Joburg. “It was a very rigorous process. I put an enormous amount of work into it. I gave it my best shot. We don’t like coronations in the DA. We like contestations, because that’s very important for democracy.”
She confirms that she will likely step down from her party post as federal chair should she become the mayoral candidate. The FM understands that Sarupen is a front-runner for that post.
Other parties and groupings are moving to occupy the centre.
Former DA leader Mmusi Maimane, founding leader of Build One South Africa, which has two seats in parliament, is working to create a centrist formation to take on both the ANC and the DA. Another player in this space is former editor Songezo Zibi, whose Rise Mzansi party also has two MPs.
Another prominent former DA personality is Herman Mashaba, who formed ActionSA. It has only six MPs nationally, with 1.2% of the vote in 2024, but it has 44 seats (16% of the total) on the Joburg city council. Its strength is local elections and it is putting all its resources into upsetting the DA in Gauteng.
The biggest threat to the ANC in local elections is low turnout — the proportion of registered voters who actually cast a ballot on the day. Municipal voting is consistently lower than in national elections, which should favour the DA if it can catch the imagination of disgruntled ratepayers.
Van Onselen says the relationship between voter turnout and the ANC vote will be a determining factor — “more impactful than any other party political consideration”.
“The DA flatlined in the last three elections,” he says, “and its traditional local government election spike was only one percentage point in 2021. There were two reasons for this: Covid drove turnout down across all party bases in 2021, and splinter parties had an impact on the DA.”
So the big determining question for the DA in this election, says Van Onselen, is whether it can get its historical spike back. “Can it enthuse voters to the degree that it did in 2011 and 2016? If it can, then its track record suggests it is well set to capitalise.”
The DA has already named Brink as its mayoral candidate for Tshwane. Critics argue that the party failed to turn the city around, despite governing there longer than in any other metro outside the Western Cape.
While critics argue that Tshwane declined in its performance under the DA, Brink was elected two years ago after a string of poor mayoral picks from the party since 2016. He remained in the post for 18 months and was voted out after ActionSA went into alliance with the EFF and ANC.
Addressing the question of perceptions about the DA — it is accused of being a “white party”, given the leadership faces of the campaigns for the various cities next year — Brink says the DA cannot “eradicate racial division and erase the history of this country” with an election campaign, an election poster or a slogan.
He says this is ironic, because the DA is an “incredibly diverse party. When people criticise us, it’s not because of a lack of diversity, it’s because of white leaders.”
He argues that when Solly Msimanga, the DA’s current Gauteng leader, was its Tshwane candidate in 2016, it was because he was the best candidate. The same applied to Mashaba in Joburg and Ghaleb Cachalia, the party’s Ekurhuleni candidate.
“I think, as a political currency, racial attacks will become less and less powerful. We also know that the ANC, having nothing else left, will try to exploit race. But, equally, fewer people actually fall for that.
“Faced with crumbling infrastructure, corruption, self-enrichment, a revolving door of mayors, puppet mayors, manipulation, lies and deceit, they can choose a party that places competence and service delivery and the needs of the residents foremost.”
Brink is laying the foundation for his campaign. The DA has, for the first time, established structures across all 107 Tshwane wards. Brink’s name has also come up in the party’s leadership race, but he dismisses this, saying he is committed to seeing the Tshwane mayoral race through.
The PA, led by flamboyant sports minister Gayton McKenzie, is putting up a strong polling performance in parts of the Western Cape. There is a sense that the DA will have to grow significantly in new areas to retain its grip there.
However, in Hill-Lewis as mayor of Cape Town, the DA has a man with an impressive track record. He dismisses the oft-held critique that the DA delivers only for those living in leafy suburbs. As we spoke, he was under fire by residents from upper-middle-class neighbourhoods over his latest budget.
“We’ve had quite a lot of support from lower-middle-class and working-class neighbourhoods who are actually getting all the budget allocation,” he tells the FM. “If there’s one thing that I’m actually glad about in all this controversy, is that you can see in practical terms where all our money is going.
“It’s not a mystery — it’s overwhelmingly going into poorer communities, and it’s being funded by wealthier communities. Hence the uproar, and so you’ve seen people calling me a municipal Marxist. That was a new one!” Hill-Lewis says he is unapologetic, given the levels of poverty, unemployment and the dire social issues in many Cape Town communities.
Hill-Lewis was born in 1986 and raised by a single mother, a nurse. It was not an overtly politically charged household, but he recalls reading Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country and Rian Malan’s My Traitor’s Heart in high school, during the Thabo Mbeki presidency. The books had a profound impact on him and ignited his interest in politics.
He pursued his political interest at the University of Cape Town, starting the DA’s student organisation on campus after finding that only the ANC’s student wing had representation. From there, he met Zille and volunteered to work on her first mayoral campaign, which won the DA power in the City of Cape Town.
That experience marked his first taste of a political campaign. He became Zille’s chief of staff and then ran for a slot on the DA’s list to parliament. “I got into politics because I want to do important and useful things for South Africa. So if I had an opportunity to move into national politics, in a government role, I probably would do it. But for now, I must say this is a really engaging, purposeful, fulfilling job.”
Can the DA replicate its success in Cape Town? Can it exploit the ANC’s weakness and take control, either alone or as the dominant coalition partner, in Joburg and Tshwane? From there, the next step would be to win a majority in Gauteng in 2029, along with a substantial spike in national support.
It will need fresh thinking. If the DA is reluctant to choose new leaders, the same leaders need to do some different things and create new perceptions. Voters need to be persuaded that, nationally, the DA can effectively walk the tightrope of being seen to oppose the ANC, while contributing to effective governance and administration as part of the GNU. It also needs to avoid wasting its ammunition on minor battles with the ANC.
Locally, it has to convince ratepayers that municipalities require a few big parties for good governance, rather than a range of splinter groups whose election achieves a degree of representivity for marginal parties but contributes only instability and corrupt horse-trading.
The danger is that the growing power vacuum left by the ANC will be occupied by a reactionary alliance of MK and EFF. This is an idea that is also a magnet for many in the ANC who long for the easier days of majority power, guaranteed patronage and rent-seeking. In that scenario, the many splinter parties will be seen as useful idiots — or just useless.
Conditions will probably never be more favourable for the DA to consolidate and grow its hold on the centre ground. No other party has the capacity to do this, for the good of the economy and the country.
Above all, the DA needs to break free finally of the perception that is has hit its natural electoral ceiling.
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