Do we like them?Do we like John Steenhuisen?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A clean record on harm and some real good, held back by a bruising pile of party feuds, money questions and contested claims.
Steenhuisen is a Durban political lifer. He was elected a councillor at 22 in what is now the eThekwini metro, rose through the DA's ranks, became parliamentary chief whip in 2011 and was elected party leader in 2019. He stood down as leader in 2026 after two terms, which makes his current story a fall from the top.
His exit began in February, when he announced he wouldn't seek a third term and said he wanted to focus on the foot-and-mouth outbreak as agriculture minister. It came amid a very public row with former environment minister Dion George. George lodged an affidavit with the Public Protector alleging Steenhuisen engineered his removal for personal and commercial reasons. Steenhuisen called the claims “flimsy fabrications” and said they were a revenge attempt. That's an allegation, not a finding, and the Public Protector's outcome wasn't reported in what we read.
Money questions followed him too. Daily Maverick reported a May 2025 default judgment against him for almost R150,000 in unpaid personal credit card debt, and reported that the DA's finance committee had removed his party card because the account couldn't be reconciled. He didn't dispute the judgment, said his personal finances were nobody's business without evidence of abuse of office, and said he chose to return the card. The DA's executive later cleared him of misusing the card.
On the harm test, there's not much against him in what we found. At Cape Town Pride in 2020 he urged Ramaphosa to use his African Union chairmanship to push for LGBTQI rights across Africa, naming countries with repressive laws. In the Oval Office in 2025 he rejected Trump's claims about white Afrikaners and told him the EFF was an opposition party. Climate and women's policy barely showed up in our searches, so that part of the record is thin.
The recent bit is the mess. In late June he said new DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis had “gave my head to a baying mob of hyenas” over his demotion, and he alleged that Tony Leon's firm, Resolve Communications, had undue influence on ministers. Leon called the allegations “false and baseless” and Ramaphosa said they needed a thorough probe. The DA says it hasn't opened disciplinary action against Steenhuisen. Hill-Lewis says the relationship will take time to repair and called the public spat unhelpful.
The good stuff is real, if modest. He used a platform at Pride to speak for people who live under harsh laws, and he stood in front of Trump and disputed the genocide claim rather than nodding along. Against that, his own party is split on whether he is a wronged man or a loose cannon. It's a close call on nice rather than a clear pass or fail.