City of Cape Town gets new mayor as DA’s Geordin Hill-Lewis sworn in

The City of Cape Town has a new executive mayor after the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) Geordin Hill-Lewis was officially sworn in on Thursday.

Hill-Lewis’ inauguration, which took place during a council meeting, comes after the DA won the most votes in the city following the 2021 local government elections.

The victory meant that the party, which scored an election victory in Cape Town for the fourth time since 2006, has 153 seats in the metropolitan municipality.

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After 224 councillors voted for him, Hill-Lewis said he was honoured to be Cape Town’s new mayor.

“It is the single greatest honour of my life to be officially elected as the mayor of the City of Cape Town. Thank you for placing your faith in me. I will make sure this faith has not been misplaced. Now, our work starts to make Cape Town a beacon of hope for SA,” he said on Twitter.

There were 15 spoilt ballots as well as 20 abstentions.

Hill-Lewis’ new position will see him resign as a member of Parliament (MP), where he was the DA’s shadow minister for finance.

Prior to that, the new mayor served as shadow minister for trade and industry.

At the age of 34, Hill-Lewis is the city’s youngest mayor since the installation of democracy in 1994.

He was elected to Parliament in 2011 at the age of 24, at the time the youngest MP to be elected since 1994.

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He previously served for five years as chief of staff to the then-DA leader Helen Zille.

Hill-Lewis began his involvement in politics in the arena of student politics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), launching the DA’s first student branch and eventually winning student elections on campus.

He has a master’s degree in finance from the University of London.

Meanwhile, former Springbok rugby player Eddie Andrews was elected as Cape Town’s new deputy mayor after securing 138 votes.