Hill-Lewis Hits Out At PA, EFF And NCC Over Photos Of Party Figures Holding Rifles

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has accused opposition parties of showing off firearms while his administration works to remove illegal guns from the streets, in a post that pairs the claim with photos of members of three rival parties holding rifles.

Hill-Lewis posted on X on Monday that while illegal guns were being taken off the streets, the opposition “keeps showing them off”. He added that the DA will fight for law and order and for beating crime in Cape Town, remove these weapons from the streets and make communities safer.

The collage shows four images. They include Patriotic Alliance (PA) campaign members walking with an armed man in tactical gear, and EFF leader Julius Malema holding a rifle at a desk. A man in PA colours is shown carrying a rifle, and a man in a National Coloured Congress (NCC) T shirt is shown holding two rifles. The post did not say where or when the photos were taken, and it did not say whether any of the firearms are illegal. Licensed firearms and legal security arrangements are not unlawful in themselves.

Malema was convicted in October 2025 on five counts under the Firearms Control Act over the discharge of a rifle at a 2018 EFF rally. He was sentenced to five years in April 2026. The Makhanda High Court granted him leave to appeal on 29 September, and he remains out on warning. He has described the case as politically motivated.

Firearms are a central issue in Cape Town. Gun Free SA said in March that provincial police reported 926 cases of illegal possession of firearms and ammunition in the third quarter of the financial year, up from 758 a year earlier, and that 57% of Western Cape murders involved firearms. Hill-Lewis has previously criticised the justice system for poor conviction rates in gun cases.

The post comes as campaigning enters its final stretch before the 4 November local government elections. At the DA’s final Western Cape rally earlier this month, Hill-Lewis called the PA, ANC, GOOD and EFF “parties of chaos”. The PA, the EFF and the NCC had not responded to the post at the time of writing.

Source: https://x.com/geordinhl/status/2114676067340370073?s=46

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