ANC not likely to take back Western Cape from the DA, says political analyst

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

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

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 using some failures of the DA 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.

“Twenty five percent of the people in the Western Cape I think are coloured and about 25% are white and 25% are black. It’s a fractured province in terms of demographics and as far as I understand demographics, the 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 was not clear what impact the emergence of the PA would make in the Western Cape with a decline in the popularity of the Good party and a void in terms of the coloured voice in the Western Cape.