DA leader and Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has declared the party the winner in the Mother City
Elections 2026
DA Leader Geordin Hill-Lewis at the Democratic Alliance 2026 Manifesto Launch. Picture: Gallo Images/Fani Mahuntsi
The DA in the City of Cape Town (CoCt) has declared itself the outright winner in the metropolitan municipality.
With just 24% of voting stations counted in the metro at the time of the announcement, party leader and mayoral candidate Geordin Hill-Lewis said the DA was on track to secure a comfortable majority.
“Based on our own collection of all the data from all of the voting stations where you all worked late into last night and into this morning, we can now project that our results in the CoCT will be around 58%,” Hill-Lewis said.
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As of 12pm, 31% of all voting stations nationally had completed counting, with the ANC leading the DA by 32% to 27%.
Hill-Lewis said the preliminary forecast gave his party a “resounding endorsement” to govern Cape Town, thanking residents for their unconfirmed support.
“It has been such an honour and a privilege to serve as your mayor for these last five years, and I can’t wait to serve as your mayor again from today,” said Hill-Lewis.
Alleged DA growth
The DA leader boasted that the party had seen significant growth in areas where it had previously been overlooked.
“The results that we are seeing this morning from across many of Cape Town’s townships are nothing short of extraordinary.
“We are seeing places where the DA used to get 2[%] or 3[%] or 4% of the vote, where we are tripling and quadrupling, and even more than that,” Hill-Lewis said.
He extended his forecast to the national level, suggesting that the party’s other mayoral candidates may fall short of the 50% mark.
“It’s a little bit too early to say, but it looks like, if current trends continue, that Cape Town will be the only city in the country with a majority government.
Hill-Lewis said that, with vote counting still underway, he believed “every other city” would most likely be governed by a coalition.
“And in many of those places, it’s a very good chance that it will be a DA-led coalition,” he said.
In 2021, the DA secured 58.26% in Cape Town with 1 062 086 votes.
