Keep rivals out of our councils, Hill-Lewis tells DA’s final Western Cape rally

Thousands of DA supporters belted out Kurt Darren’s hit Kaptein and Freshlyground’s post-apartheid anthem Doo Bee Doo at the party’s final Western Cape election rally on Saturday, where leader Geordin Hill-Lewis took potshots at the PA, ANC, GOOD and EFF, warning that they would run the province’s towns into the ground if given power.

The rally at the Erica Park Sports Complex in Belhar drew a sea of blue, with supporters packing the grandstand and filling the field in front of the stage.

DA banners lined the fences, marshals in orange and yellow bibs stood guard at the steel barriers, and many supporters wore blue bucket hats and T-shirts printed with “GHL for mayor”, while a giant screen above the stage read “take our municipalities forward for all”.

Other shirts carried the hashtags #KomPadToe, Afrikaans for come to the road, and #Siyabangena, isiXhosa for we are going in.

Some had arrived as early as 7am to secure their spots.

With 25 days left before voters go to the polls on November 4, Hill-Lewis, who is also Cape Town mayor, told the crowd that only the DA had the numbers to keep the four parties out of councils across the Western Cape.

“Already in many towns in this province we have seen what chaos comes with coalition governments,” an ebullient Hill-Lewis said.

“And the people paid the price for this chaos.

“Our people cannot afford the parties of chaos like the PA, ANC, GOOD and EFF in government.

“So on November 4, we need every DA voter to vote.”

Supporters came from across the province, many bussed in or dropped off by taxis, while others walked from their homes in Belhar and nearby areas such as Delft.

Brenda Matiwana, 57, of Strand, said: “The DA is great and there is no other alternative.

“The DA works for me and for my people.”

Errol Fillies, 46, walked to the rally from his home in Belhar.

He said he had been a member of the ANC and then the PA before joining the DA in 2024, and said he loved the party.

“They go the extra mile,” Fillies said.

Audrey Williams, of Helderberg, said she believed the DA would deliver for young people.

“The DA will bring change just like it has been for the past almost two decades,” Williams said.

“Children get work. Matriculants also get work.

“This is what we want and that is what we get.”

Not everyone in DA colours came without complaint.

John Commons, 65, wore a white shirt thrown open over a blue “Vote DA” T-shirt.

He told IOL he had recently joined the party as an activist and believed it was leaving older people out in the cold.

“They are not fighting for the elderly,” Commons said.

“Where must the elderly go? They are failing us. I want to change that.

“I have brought some issues I have to their attention but it falls on deaf ears.

“I know what I am saying sounds anti-DA. I am not. Together we’ll change.”

Basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube, one of the DA’s deputy federal chairpersons, told IOL on the sidelines that the party had put everything into the campaign and that DA-run cities would keep investing more in poor communities.

“Look, we are giving this everything,” Gwarube said.

Western Cape police oversight and community safety MEC Anroux Marais said the rally belonged to the activists who had knocked on doors for months.

“Today is the last rally for the DA and it’s wonderful to see everyone coming out, especially our activists, that are working very hard,” Marais told IOL.

“I want to thank each and every one who worked so hard to get out that vote.

“And it is just wonderful to have this wonderful sunny day.”

DA councillor Angus McKenzie said the crowd numbered about 8,000.

He said the turnout showed what the DA had done in Cape Town over the past five years, and that residents who said nothing had changed only had to look outside.

“I think it’s very difficult to say nothing has changed in the city,” McKenzie said on the sidelines.

“You’ve really just got to open your front door to see that our services have become better, our infrastructure development has become better.

“When they open their taps and clean drinking water comes out of it, we know that the DA is the party to be.

“When they turn on the lights and the lights go on, we know that the DA is the party to be.”

McKenzie said many people on the Cape Flats on indigent relief were saving close to R2,000 a month on their municipal bills.

DA Western Cape leader Tertius Simmers, who is also the provincial infrastructure MEC, told IOL that turnout would decide the election.

“Voters, in less than 25 days, the power is in your hands,” Simmers said.

“It’s on the 4th of November. I know it’s a public holiday.

“Voter turnout is very important. It’s very crucial.

“Five to 10 minutes of your time over the next five years on where we are taking local government.”

DA Cape Town metro chair JP Smith, who is also the city’s political head for safety and security, said on the sidelines that he was confident the party would keep its majority in the metro.

Smith said he expected the DA to hold all its wards in Cape Town and that five to seven ANC wards were within reach.

“The ANC is riveted by infighting at the moment, massive infighting, and many wards are tearing each other apart,” Smith said.

“We’re hearing it from ANC activists talking to us, we’re hearing it from ANC councillors who are embittered and angry.

“I’m confident that we’ll return a majority.

“Polling is not voting, voting is voting.

“We will see on November 4 whether voters believe we have demonstrated an adequate track record for us to have another term of office.”

Smith said the metro police detective branch Hill-Lewis had promised would start with an intake in January, with extra money in the adjustment budget for more recruitment.

He said SAPS had lost 1,330 staff members in the city over the past four years, while the city had added 1,280 in the same period.

“We are trying to compensate for what we lost,” Smith said.

“If SAPS had kept their numbers stable and we added, imagine what we could have achieved.

“It does not help to put more boots on the ground and catch more people with guns and see them walk free.

“If you’re not getting convictions, you’re failing.”

Smith said Cape Town had recorded four consecutive quarters of falling crime, especially violent crime, and that gang violence was down in every area where the city had deployed its Law Enforcement Advancement Plan, or Leap, members.

The city declared a formal intergovernmental dispute with acting police minister Firoz Cachalia in August after national government refused to let metro police investigate crime.

Cachalia told Parliament’s police committee he had been advised that giving metro police investigative powers would be inconsistent with the Constitution.

Smith said the minister’s legal opinion held that the city could not investigate crime.

“Well I’m sorry minister, but a slight problem. We’re already doing it,” Smith said.

Smith said he had started further legal action over the January 2025 police raid on his office, which the Western Cape High Court later declared unlawful and unconstitutional, but would only pursue it after the election.

“After the election we can come out swinging in the courts, we’re ready,” Smith said.

“My main focus is not about myself.”

National Coloured Congress leader Fadiel Adams told the Madlanga commission in August that Smith had tried to get a former gang boss to deal with him, a claim Smith has denied since it was first made.

“It is a preposterous claim,” Smith told IOL.

When Darren took the stage, the crowd was on its feet for Kaptein, Afrikaans for captain and one of the biggest hits of his career.

Freshlyground’s Doo Bee Doo had supporters singing at the top of their lungs, while the Eastern Cape’s All Stars kept the crowd entertained.

Hill-Lewis spoke in the afternoon and opened in English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa.

He told the crowd the Western Cape was the best province in the country and that it was where everything was happening.

He then had supporters turn to the person next to them and say “twenty-five days” and “we are ready”, before leading a call and response in which the crowd shouted “work hard!” and “a South Africa that works for all!”, the party’s campaign slogan.

Hill-Lewis said the work of DA activists showed in the water that came out of residents’ taps, working streetlights, rubbish trucks that arrived and public swimming pools where children could swim.

“These things may not always make national headlines,” Hill-Lewis said.

“But they make a big difference to the lives of real people.

“And we should never accept that good basic services are somehow too much to expect.

“We should expect them everywhere, for everyone.”

He named activists in Matzikama, Knysna, Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, Mossel Bay and Cape Town, and told the crowd that every door they knocked on represented hope.

Hill-Lewis said national SAPS under the ANC had failed the province, and that Cape Town had added 1,300 new metro police members this term alone.

He pointed to the SWAT and drone unit the city launched on Wednesday.

Hill-Lewis told the crowd that the city’s metro police had recently arrested men carrying AK47s and fake number plates, who were then released on R5,000 bail.

“We don’t even know yet what they did with those guns. How many people did they kill?” Hill-Lewis said.

Hill-Lewis said towns and cities in the province had created more jobs than any other in the past five years.

“Here is the basic rule. Where the DA governs, jobs will follow,” he said.

He then turned on the smaller parties, telling supporters they destroyed progress, good government and basic services every time they got the chance.

“We know who they are,” Hill-Lewis said in Afrikaans.

“Those smooth talkers who promise the world but deliver nothing.

“They say 10 things but don’t do one.

“They will try hard over the next three weeks and we must stop them.”

Hill-Lewis closed by naming towns across the province, from George and Swartland to Hermanus, Saldanha, Matzikama and Oudtshoorn, where he said the DA would win.

“We will take every town and city in the Western Cape forward for everyone,” Hill-Lewis said.

IOL