Note to Editors: The following speech was delivered by DA Federal Leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis at the DA’s “Get On The Roll” Registration Rally in Eersterust, City of Tshwane.
Please see pictures here, here, here, here, and here
Dumêlang, batho ba Tshwane!
Goeiemore, Pretoria!
Good morning, Tshwane!
Good morning to every DA activist, volunteer, organiser, branch member and voter registration champion here today.
It is wonderful to be here in the capital city of South Africa.
It is wonderful to be here in Gauteng.
This week something historic happened in Gauteng that send a loud message across South Africa.
When I woke up early on Thursday morning, and I saw my phone had 50 whatsapps. And I read them and saw the news, I jumped out of bed and shouted “Yessss!, and I ran around the bedroom with excitement”. My wife asked me what was happened.
And I told her, that for the first time in our history as a party we won a 100% township ward in Emfuleni.
This is a community where we once got 1% of the vote. Now we’ve won it from the ANC.
This week every South African heard the names of ‘Emfuleni’, ‘Evaton’ and ‘Maki Tshabalala’. Remember those names. They will go down in history as a historic moment for our country and for our party.
Some political commentators who usually give us such a hard time, they called it “a truly sensational shift in South African politics”.
I agree!
And we sent such a shockwave through the ANC that the very next day they fired the Mayor of Emfuleni.
Good.
Down with bad Mayors down.
Down with broken, corrupt governments, down.
They are on the run.
They are running for cover. Running away from the blue wave.
And we say run faster.
Baleka.
Hamba.
Sizobashaya.
Siyeza.
We must ask why the ANC only fired that Mayor now?
For years Emfuleni has been one of the worst governed municipalities in the whole country.
Right next door, we have Midvaal, a DA governed municipality that works for all. Right next door we have Emfuleni, a broken, corrupt place that works for no one except for the leaders who steal.
So why did they fire him now.
I’ll tell you why.
Because they are panicking.
They see the blue wave coming. It’s getting bigger and bigger, and it is going to sweep away bad government, it is going to sweep away corruption, it is going to sweep away bad leaders, it’s going to sweep away broken promises.
Yiza ngoku kawuleza ama blue wave, yiza ngoku!
The time is coming. The wave is coming.
Now when something great happens in the family, we take a moment to properly celebrate.
Maki, Kingsol, Luyolo, Solly, Ashor, Gogo, Cilliers, Khathu, Fred. All of you come up quickly, wherever you are. Run up here.
Look at this magnificent team we have here. This team is campaigning every day, doing the things, giving hope to people that we can fix our country, and this week they have given our party and our country a massive injection of hope!
Now, come on, let’s get to our feet and celebrate them, celebrate this win, celebrate Maki and Kingsol in particular!
Thank you thank you thank you for what this means for our cause.
If change can happen in Evaton and Emfuleni, it can happen right next door in Orange Farm and Soweto too.
I want to say to the residents of Orange Farm and Soweto.
The people of Evaton are your neighbours. They have chosen change, and they will see now the change that the DA will bring for everyone.
Give us a chance, lend us your vote, and you will see the change we will bring to Jozi.
And if we can change Evaton, and Jozi, we can bring change in Tshwane too.
And if we can change Tshwane, we can change Gauteng.
And if we can change Gauteng, we can change South Africa.
We need Cilliers Brink back in government as Mayor in 2026 to fix the roads of Tshwane – literally.
And once those roads are fixed, we will make sure those roads lead us straight to the Union Buildings in 2029!
But friends, before we talk about 2029, we have a job to do in 2026.
This year, South Africans will vote in the local government elections.
And here in Tshwane, that election is not about slogans, posters or speeches.
It is about whether your streetlight works when your child walks home.
It is about whether the pothole outside your house gets fixed before it bursts another tyre.
It is about whether water comes out of your tap, or whether residents are left dry while cronies get rich from water tankers and the Premier showers in a hotel.
And friends, everywhere we go residents are crying out for one change above all else.
They want to feel safer where they live.
We must be the party that stands up for each and every mother and grandmother and young lady and family in our country who do not feel safe.
But you know what, this week, we got shocking news that makes every South African more unsafe.
This week, South Africans learned that 28,000 parolees are just gone from the system. They are untraceable. They have vanished. Many of these that are missing are violent criminals – they have done terrible crimes – murders, rapes, armed robberies. And now they are missing!
Think about that. Think about the danger that puts every citizen in. They could be anywhere. They could be in your street, in your community.
And I’m sorry to tell you that already we are hearing stories of how many of these criminals are committing more crimes. Some terrible, violent crimes.
Convicted offenders, released on parole, are meant to be monitored by the state.
Someone in the government is supposed to know where they are at all times. They are supposed to check in at their local police station.
Now the Minister of Prisons, Pieter Groenewald, has known about this crisis for two years.
He has not told the public. He has not given us a plan for how to find these people and bring them back before the law.
In fact, he has no plan at all. He doesn’t know where they are. And he doesn’t have a plan to find them.
His only response to this scandal has been to say that he convened a summit last year to talk about it.
Well, how are the residents of Gauteng, the people of South Africa, supposed to feel safe with another summit?
You see, FF Plus cannot pretend to be a party of law and order while its own Minister presides over a parole system that has lost track of tens of thousands of violent offenders.
But we are the party of law and order. And we will restore law and order in South Africa. So let me tell you what we will do.
With a DA government, we will ensure that every violent parolee has an electronic bracelet attached to them so that they can be tracked every minute of the day.
We’ve proposed this for years. With a simple tech investment, we can have a parole system that actually protects communities instead of abandoning them.
That is the difference between parties that talk tough but do nothing, and parties that govern well and fix things.
It is about whether you can trust the government to be on your side.
And that is the choice before Tshwane.
I want to talk to you about the choice between “coalition chaos” and DA-led delivery.
Now, politicians often talk about coalition chaos as if it is something that only happens in council chambers.
As if chaos is just about who gets to sit in which chair, who gets to wear the chain, who gets which committee.
But that is not what coalition chaos means to ordinary people.
Coalition chaos means you report a broken street light and nothing happens.
It means that a pothole becomes a trench, and a trench becomes a road you cannot use.
It means traffic lights are out for so long that residents simply accept danger as normal.
It means officials do not know who is in charge, contractors do not know who will pay, and residents do not know who to call.
Coalition chaos means council meetings collapse while communities wait.
It means small party thugs behave like the thugs they are. This week I saw a video of Kenny Kunene, who is the PA’s candidate for mayor of Joburg. You must see how he behaved in Council this week. It is online.
He used his fingers like a machine gun, just like Jacobs Zuma used to do, to act as if he was shooting at the DA. Even Jacob Zuma stopped doing that. Now the PA is doing it.
Then he took off his belt in public, and made like he was using it as a slingshot to hurl something at the DA. He is nothing more than a thug.
But coalition chaos means people like him, and their friends in the EFF, gets influence over budgets, contracts and decisions.
It means service delivery becomes a bargaining chip in backroom deals.
And worst of all, coalition chaos teaches people to lower their expectations.
But I am here today to say: do not give up hope.
Because we can end coalition chaos.
Because South Africa can work.
Tshwane can work.
Government can work.
And where the DA governs, we prove it every day.
Where the DA governs, potholes are fixed. Street lights are repaired. Budgets are funded. Unqualified audits matter. Infrastructure is built. Corruption is fought. Public money is used for the public. Officials are expected to work, not shift blame that “the system is offline”.
Where the DA governs, the government is on your side.
That is the message we must take into every community in Tshwane.
To the family in Mamelodi who wants safe streets: the DA is on your side.
To the pensioner in Atteridgeville who needs reliable services: the DA is on your side.
To the small business owner in Pretoria North who just wants the basics to work: the DA is on your side.
To the young person in Soshanguve looking for a job and a future: the DA is on your side.
To the ratepayer in Centurion who is tired of paying more and getting nothing: the DA is on your side.
We are on the side of every resident who wants honest government.
We are on the side of every worker who wants opportunity.
We are on the side of every parent who wants their child to grow up in a city that works.
We are on the side of every South African who still believes that this country can be better.
And friends, this is not just a slogan. With the DA, this is a record.
In the Western Cape, where the DA governs, the unemployment rate is the lowest in the country. That is not an accident.
That is what happens when government focuses on the basics: reliable services, clean administration, infrastructure investment, cutting red tape and creating the conditions for businesses to grow.
Jobs do not come from speeches.
Jobs do not come from tenders for connected cadres.
Jobs do not come from coalition chaos.
Jobs come when government works.
And that is why the DA’s mission is not just to win councils. It is to restore hope.
But the answer to despair is not to stay home.
The answer to broken government is not another experiment in coalition chaos.
The answer is to vote for the one party with the record, the values, the people and the plan to get things done.
That party is the Democratic Alliance.
In this election, every vote will count.
But not every vote will help bring change.
A vote for a party that says one thing before the election and does another thing after the election is a vote that puts the ANC and the EFF back into the room.
A vote split among opposition parties is a vote that keeps broken coalitions alive.
So our message must be simple, honest and direct: if you want to end coalition chaos in Tshwane, vote DA.
If you want a government that is on your side, vote DA.
But before people can vote, they must be registered.
That is why this weekend matters so much.
Elections are not won on election day alone.
Elections are won in the months before election day, when volunteers knock on doors, when councillors speak to residents, when activists help first-time voters register, when families remind each other to check their details, and when communities decide that enough is enough.
So I am asking every person here today: do not leave this event as only a supporter. Leave as an organiser.
Leave as a registration champion.
Go home and check your registration.
Check your family’s registration.
Check your neighbour’s registration.
Check the young person who has just turned 18.
Check the person who has moved house.
Check the person who says, “I don’t vote because nothing changes.”
Tell them: things can change. But only if you register. Only if you vote. Only if you choose a government that works.
Because in November, Tshwane can choose stability over chaos.
Tshwane can choose delivery over excuses.
Tshwane can choose clean government over backroom deals.
Tshwane can choose hope over decline.
And that is the road we are building together — from the streets of Tshwane, to the communities of Gauteng, to the Union Buildings in 2029.
In 2026, we will get Tshwane working for all
In 2029, we will get South Africa working for all
But it starts with us and it starts, with rocking the roll, with getting every name on the voters’ roll, every door knocked, every vote won, and inspiring every South African that together we can get South Africa working for all.