Election battleground: Will the DA hold on to the Western Cape? … All of it?

While many political parties are eyeing the seat of power in the Western Cape, political analyst Piet Croucamp says it would not be easy for the ANC to push the DA out of government after the 29 May election.

The DA has been governing the Western Cape since the 2009 election, having won a bigger majority at the election in 2014, but losing support in the 2019 election.

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Possible Multi-Party coalition in Western Cape

The ANC, Patriotic Alliance (PA), Rise Mzansi and ActionSA are all battling to push the DA out of the control seat in the Western Cape, noting the DA’s failure to address issues, such as inequality in the Western Cape and political squabbles within the DA’s Western Cape constituency.

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Some political parties are also hoping to capitalise on the disgruntlement of the Muslim community in the Western Cape over the DA’s stance on the Palestine-Israel war.

According to Croucamp, the DA is likely to go into a coalition with like-minded parties, such as ActionSA and other members of the Multi-Party Charter. He said some polls showed that the DA numbers could drop, forcing them into a coalition in the Western Cape.

“I can’t see them losing the elections all together,” he said.

Meanwhile, Croucamp said because of demographics and voting patterns in the Western Cape, he did not see the ANC returning to power in the Western Cape.

“25 % of the people in the Western Cape, I think, are coloured. About 25% are white and 25% are black. It’s a fractured province, in terms of demographics. As far as I understand demographics, black South Africans are the minority there, which is the resource base of the ANC,” he said.

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Croucamp said the coloured middle class were conservative with 8% of them being Muslim, while the rest were likely to be Christian and pro-Israel.

It remains to be seen what impact the emergence of the Patriotic Alliance (PA), whose leader Gayton McKenzie served as mayor of the Central Karoo District Municipality in the province, would make in the Western Cape.

It has been speculated that there may be a decline in popularity of the Good party, with other parties including the PA filling the void.