Patriotic Alliance is well-positioned to capture the Coloured vote

South Africa’s first post-democratic Local Government Elections (LGE) were held in 1995 and 1996. This year technically marks 30 years since we held our first LGE.

There has been a serious shift at local government since 2016 when the African National Congress (ANC) lost power in all the metros in Gauteng. The ANC has never recovered from that loss, and it has continued to decline.

We have seen new political parties being formed which have really changed the political landscape of the country.

The new political party to look at in these coming elections is the Patriotic Alliance (PA). This is not their first local government elections. We saw them in 2021 and how they won seats in some municipalities, and we know that Minister Gayton McKenzie was the Mayor of Central Karoo District Municipality in 2022. This shows how they have made inroads as the PA.

In the City of Johannesburg, we saw them being a king maker during the vote of no confidence of then Mayor Mpho Phalatse, who was ultimately removed as the mayor because the DA refused to agree on Kenny Kunene being party of the mayoral committee.

In the Western Cape, we might see the Democratic Alliance (DA) losing its base in the City of Cape Town. This is because of the new political parties that have disrupted the ANC and the DA over the past few years. We are going to see the Patriotic Alliance grow its base in the City of Cape Town and this is going to be a big loss for the DA, especially for their newly elected federal leader Geordin Hill-Lewis who is also the current mayor and the DA’s mayoral candidate. For years, the coloured vote in Cape Town has been important for the DA. Minister McKenzie has built his party around the coloured community. There won’t be an outright winner in the City of Cape Town which means another metro will be going to coalition talks.

In Mangaung too we will not see the ANC winning that city outright. It is still not clear which political party will take votes from the ANC. The uMkhonto WeSizwe Party (MKP) does not have a strong base there, including the African Congress for Transformation (ACT), the party of Ace Magashule, the former Secretary-General of the ANC and former premier of the Free State province. They did not do well in the 2024 national and provincial elections. And the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are not that strong in the city. It would be interesting to look at all the campaign trails in that city to see who will get majority. The underdogs are likely to be the PA, and that is likely to be the political party that is going to hurt the ANC, as we know recently the son of Minister McKenzie bought Bloemfontein Celtics known as Maselesele and he is looking at buying a stake in the Cheaters rugby team. Minister McKenzie was born in Heidedal, which is part of Mangaung. These factors can’t be ignored when it comes to voters seeing him as the man who saved the most-loved soccer team in the Free State province.

We need to note that Mangaung is the city were the ANC was formed in 1912 and Cape Town is where the DA headquarters are based.