Minister of communications & digital technologies Solly Malatsi, a candidate for deputy federal chairperson at this weekend’s DA Congress, has endorsed Geordin Hill-Lewis for the party’s top position.
Malatsi said leadership changes at the congress will likely trigger broader organisational changes, including a review of the positions in government currently held under the outgoing leadership.
While the constitutional prerogative to appoint and dismiss cabinet ministers rests with President Cyril Ramaphosa, the DA exercises considerable influence over which of its members fill the positions allocated to it under the government of national unity (GNU) arrangement.
The party holds six ministerial posts and six deputy ministerial positions in the executive, giving an incoming DA leader meaningful sway over a significant slice of the national government.
Any reshuffle of DA-aligned appointments would require Ramaphosa’s sign-off, but in practice the president has largely deferred to coalition partners on their own internal nominations.
“In most likelihood it’s going to be Hill-Lewis [who will replace John Steenhuisen as DA leader],” Malatsi said in an interview with Business Day.
“Geordin is going to win, and he’s the right person to be leading the party at this moment ... at this transition the DA is going through. ”
Malatsi’s endorsement of Hill-Lewis follows other high-profile endorsements of the Cape Town mayor’s campaign to be the next DA leader, including those aligned with the party’s traditional leadership bloc. This weekend’s congress is the first the party has held since joining the GNU after the 2024 general elections.
The contest follows the decision by Steenhuisen to step down, opening the door for a leadership reset ahead of this year’s municipal elections.
Malatsi said it is unlikely that the leadership transition will leave the rest of the party’s structures untouched as the DA navigates its role within the national executive and seeks to strengthen its positions within South Africa’s biggest municipalities.
“The reality of politics is that whenever there are leadership changes, there are other changes within the organisation that have to happen as a direct result of that change,” he said.
“No-one should feel they have the right to be entitled to a position permanently because they occupied it under a dispensation.”
“His [Hill-Lewis] view was quite simple, that whenever there are leadership changes there’s always a review of the team based on performance and what the leadership believes needs to be happening.”
We had a historic moment in our country ... It is the better choice to be part of the solution at this key moment rather than to be outside of it.
— DA's Solly Malatsi
Malatsi did not specify which positions might be affected. The DA holds several cabinet portfolios under the GNU, including communications, agriculture, public works and home affairs, and the incoming leader will have influence over how those appointments are managed going forward.
“We had a historic moment in our country,” he said. “It is the better choice to be part of the solution at this key moment rather than to be outside of it.”
He drew a distinction between the coalition’s performance at national level, which he said had supported investor confidence, and the record of coalition governments at local level, pointing to frequent motions of no confidence and unstable council arrangements in the Gauteng metros as examples of what the party wanted to avoid replicating.
Malatsi, who marks 20 years of involvement with the DA this year, described the congress as a generational shift for a party that spent most of its history in opposition. Many of the candidates contesting senior positions this weekend are under 45, though he pushed back on the idea that their age was especially significant.
“There isn’t and there hasn’t been so much focus on people’s age in the DA,” he said. “By other political party standards we may be young, but we’ve been around in the DA for so long.”
The deputy federal leadership race pits incumbent Malatsi against a broad field that includes Cilliers Brink, Belinda Echeozonjoku, Siviwe Gwarube, Anroux Marais, Nomafrench Mbombo and Nicholas Nyati.
The two-day federal congress begins on Saturday, with the final announcements expected on Sunday.
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