Having put together a solid set of results, Gayton McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance now controls the narrative of being the most credible alternative to the DA in the Western Cape in 2024.
The Patriotic Alliance (PA) took advantage of a bad administrative error by the DA to win a traditional ward off the latter in Cape Town by beating the more established parties. The DA was forced to watch from the sidelines since it did not appear on the ballot, as the PA broke the DA and ANC’s 15-year duopoly of ward-seat control in Cape Town.
Ward 56 (Kensington Maitland) in Cape Town:
PA 41% (1% PR) GOOD+Inglis 24% (25%) ACDP 13% (2%) ARA 11% (1%) Al Jama-ah 5%(7%) EFF 5% (1%) PAC 1% (<1%).
The setting: Ward 56 is east of the city centre. It is sandwiched between the N1 Highway, Voortrekker Road and Jakes Gerwel Drive. Most voters are in Kensington and Windermere. The ward also contains Maitland and Factreton. Its well-known landmarks are the Acacia Park parliamentary village and the SAS Wingfield naval base.
The 2021 local government election: The DA lost a lot of ground here in 2021 as its ward percentage went from 83% to 49% while an independent candidate, community activist and baseball administrator Kevin Inglis, won 17% of the vote. The DA also lost votes to GOOD which won 8% of the vote to finish third on the ballot. Al Jama-ah more than doubled its support in Ward 56 to also lure away some DA voters to get 7% support. The Cape Coloured Congress (CCC) also hurt the DA with its 6% total. The DA only won more than 50% of the vote in two of the eight voting districts in the ward. These were both in the Windermere part of Kensington. Inglis won 25% of the ward vote at Kensington High School. Al Jama-ah enjoyed its best support in Maitland, winning 10% or more in two of the voting districts there.
The by-election: The resignation of the ward councillor triggered the by-election. Big drama followed as the DA failed to submit a candidate in a ward where it would have gone into as the favourite. The second-largest party in the city, the ANC, also failed to register a candidate for the by-election. The CCC too decided to sit out the by-election. This meant that three parties, which accounted for just 60% of the ward vote total in 2021, would not be choices for voters this time round.
This is an extract of an article published by the Daily Maverick. Read the full article here: Patriotic Alliance’s stunning victory breaks ANC and DA’s 15-year ward-seat dominance in Cape Town