Hill-Lewis seeks Steenhuisen’s removal from South Africa Cabinet
Hill-Lewis has asked Ramaphosa to oust Steenhuisen from Cabinet, deepening a DA power fight that could test GNU stability and investor confidence.
Geordin Hill-Lewis has asked President Cyril Ramaphosa to remove John Steenhuisen from Cabinet, turning an internal DA power struggle into a fresh test for South Africa’s coalition government. The move would demote Steenhuisen, the agriculture minister, to deputy minister of trade and industry and replace him with Willie Aucamp, while also bringing Western Cape education MEC David Maynier into Cabinet.
The challenge carries weight well beyond party politics. Steenhuisen led the Democratic Alliance for seven years before Hill-Lewis took over, and the latest push suggests the party is still wrestling with how to distribute power inside the Government of National Unity. Aucamp is already in Cabinet as minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, after being appointed in November 2025, which would make the proposed shuffle one more sign of rapid turnover in senior posts.
The agriculture portfolio sits at the intersection of food security, disease control and export earnings, which makes the dispute economically sensitive. Steenhuisen has framed the job around livestock disease management and reopening export markets, while official government statements have stressed progress on foot-and-mouth disease vaccination measures and the sector’s importance to food security and farm exports. But Steenhuisen has also been locked in a running battle with SAAI, the farming group aligned to AfriForum, and last month the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ruled against him over the private rollout of foot-and-mouth disease vaccines by farmers and veterinarians.
The Cabinet dispute also lands in a broader pattern of GNU strain. In June 2025, Ramaphosa fired DA deputy minister Andrew Whitfield after he travelled to the United States without approval, and Steenhuisen initially asked the president to reconsider, dock Whitfield’s salary or publicly reprimand him. After Whitfield was removed, Steenhuisen escalated the confrontation and warned that “all bets are off” if corruption-accused ANC ministers were not fired within 48 hours.
Ramaphosa’s seventh administration began on 19 June 2024, and the Presidency has already overseen several Cabinet changes involving DA figures. Hill-Lewis’s move now puts the coalition’s internal discipline under the spotlight again, with the DA seeking to show leverage inside government while also risking more instability at the centre of economic policy. For investors, the signal is plain: in a fragmented political era, Cabinet durability is no longer a given.
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