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Geordin Hill-Lewis has set the Democratic Alliance (DA) the objective of becoming the biggest party in South Africa, telling delegates at the party’s Federal Congress this weekend that “we are strong enough to win” and that the task ahead is to “build a DA that can win a national election and form a government that works for all South Africans”. He made clear that this would require expansion beyond the party’s current base, stating that “we cannot win with the support we have today. We must grow, we must reach more people … and earn the trust of South Africans who have never voted for us before”, while adding that the party has “come from being a party of principled opposition … to a party that governs well where we are entrusted with power”, and that “now we must take the next step and become a party that can govern nationally”.

There are two pieces of data to weigh before judging whether and how this might occur.

The first is that since the May 2024 election, South Africa’s two largest parties appear to have settled into a stable strategic balance. Data from The Common Sense in conjunction with the Social Research Foundation, from Ipsos, and from other third-party sources point consistently to a roughly 40% base for the African National Congress (ANC) against about 25% for the DA. That balance shifted briefly during the 2025 VAT conflict, when the ANC’s support dropped sharply, but has otherwise held.

The second is that alongside that stability sits a persistent disconnect between performance perceptions and voting behaviour. On several key measures of policy and delivery, the DA is regarded as the better-governing option, yet its electoral support does not reflect that advantage. This gap formed part of Hill-Lewis’s argument to delegates.

The starkest illustration of this disconnect is found in Johannesburg, where a majority of voters express support for the idea of Helen Zille as mayor, yet only about 40% indicate that they would vote for her.

The apparent disconnect is easy to explain. Removing any regime from power, democratic or not, requires a two-step process. The first step is that key political constituencies must come to believe that the incumbent administration can no longer protect their interests.

This first step has largely occurred as the ANC’s populist policies crushed growth and thereby stalled living standards, while explicitly threatening the prospects of South Africa’s established and aspirant middle classes and thereby, vicariously, the hopes of the rural poor that their children and grandchildren in the cities will find work and a good life.

The second step is that those same constituencies must come to believe (not hope or wonder) that an alternative administration will (not might or could) defend and advance those interests.

The fact of the 40% ANC vs 25% DA deadlock is to say that this second step has only partially occurred.

That therefore is the thing to watch now at its simplest.

Hill-Lewis and his party must inculcate the realistic belief that they can defend the interests of sufficient political constituencies to command more votes than the ANC. The ANC must work to undermine that idea, while seeking to re-instill the belief it once commanded, on the strengths of its actual delivery record, that it can again protect those interests. The extent to which each party succeeds in these objectives will determine any shifts in the 40% vs 25% balance. If neither manages to shift that belief system sufficiently, a coalition future likely holds.