The Patriotic Alliance (PA) appears to have decimated the ANC's support among coloured voters in rural areas of the Western Cape so far rather than eating away at the DA’s support, DA deputy campaign manager Ashor Sarupen said Thursday.
Patriotic Alliance and ANC leaders were not immediately available for comment.
The votes in the Cape Town metropolitan area still have to be counted but on current trends the provincial outcome was looking good for the DA, Sarupen said.
The DA won 20.77% of the national vote in the 2019 elections and 52.41% of the provincial vote in the Western Cape, allowing it to retain the province, which has been under DA control since 2009. In the 2022 local government elections the party won 21.66% of the vote nationally.
Various polls predicted that nationally the DA would get between 18.6% and 22% nationally and that its control of the Western Cape would come under such pressure that a coalition government might be necessary. Much will depend on voter turnout. Traditionally the DA has been very successful in getting its supporters to voting stations.
However, Sarupen — the DA’s deputy chair — said the glitches experienced by the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) with faulty voter management devices resulted in long queues, particularly in metropolitan areas sometimes extending into the early hours of Thursday morning. He believed this would result in a record low overall voter turnout though cautioned that it was still too early to forecast this. The trends could also result in turnout in rural areas with fewer voters being higher than that in metropolitan areas.
Sarupen said the DA was encouraged by its support among black voters in rural areas.
The central message conveyed by DA party leaders in the Western Cape was that the province “works” compared to many municipalities under ANC or coalition control, where essential services have collapsed. It also prides itself on its clean audits and on having the lowest unemployment rate in the country.
But critics have argued that the province only works for the well-off and that poor communities have been neglected.
The DA’s historic dominance in the province has largely depended on its grip on the vote of the coloured community which represent 42% of the population, whites 16.4% and blacks about 39%.
This has come under threat by the plethora of smaller parties such as the PA, Rise Mzansi and Build One SA. Independent candidates have also entered the fray.
The PA, with its brand of coloured nationalism, has posed the greatest threat and is said to have made significant inroads into the DA’s support in the coloured community.
To counter this threat the DA used radio advertisements to convey the message that a vote for the PA would be a vote for the ANC and it used PA leader Gayton McKenzie’s own voice to say that his party would do this. The DA has pointed to the failed service delivery in municipalities controlled by coalitions involving the PA and the ANC.
The DA also angered smaller parties by saying that a vote for them would be a wasted vote.
Before the polls there was speculation that the DA’s ambivalent stance on Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which has allegedly resulted in the death of more than 36 000 people, would negatively affect its support among Muslim voters. ANC leaders pushed home that message at party rallies.
The DA itself did not believe that that would be an important factor determining voting, arguing that voters were more concerned about domestic issues such as jobs, service delivery and the cost of living.
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