Launching the DA’s 2026 municipal election manifesto yesterday in Newtown, Johannesburg, Hill-Lewis said the party wanted voters to give it sufficient support to govern and implement its programme without depending on unstable governing arrangements. He said the DA wanted municipalities to become institutions that worked so reliably that residents did not have to organise their daily lives around government failure. Hill-Lewis promised that municipalities governed by the DA would appoint officials according to competence. “Under the DA, public money is never party money,” Hill-Lewis said. But his central argument was that voters should judge the DA on its existing record rather than its promises alone.