DA anticipates best election results yet, leadership remains positive

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is quietly confident that its performance in this year’s election will be one of its best yet.

And while the party’s leadership is not talking right now, for obvious reasons, there was a mood of positivity among party members, agents, municipal, councillors and candidates yesterday.

Feeling that party has done well

Bronwyn Engelbrecht, DA member of the Gauteng legislature during the previous administration, said there was a buzz, a feeling in the party that it has done well and that its campaign surpassed previous ones.

“We invested massively in our visibility, in getting our message to voters,” said Engelbrecht.

“It was a tough campaign and we worked incredibly hard. I feel there will be dividends.”

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She said the party’s campaign theme, Rescue SA, was not negative, but instead put a positive spin on the situation.

“We wanted people to know that South Africa can be rescued, and that we wanted to be the country’s partner to do so.

“Because we can do it, and we can do it together.

“It’s more than just rhetoric, it’s about making work of saving the country,” she noted.

‘Results coming in are fascinating’

Renaldo Gouws, DA spokesperson for economic development, tourism and agriculture in Nelson Mandela Bay, echoed this sentiment on the X social media platform and thanked voters for coming out in their numbers on election day.

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“The results coming in are fascinating,” he said, adding that the ANC would not be able to recover from waning support and would eventually be relegated to the opposition benches.

Federal chair of the DA Helen Zille said in television interviews yesterday: “The ANC will never go above 50%, mark my words.”

Engelbrecht said that despite several odds in DA leaning areas, such as ten-hour long queues in Boksburg with many voters getting fed up with waiting, party support has prevailed.

Gouws said the DA had to fight battles on all fronts including with smaller parties that he said were trying to “eat the DA’s lunch”, such as the Patriotic Alliance.

Cape Town mayor thanks citizens for backing DA

After eNCA posted a projection that the DA will retain the Western Cape, Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis posted a picture of his massive grin, thanking citizens for backing the DA, and calling the Western Cape the “one province that works”.

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A Western Cape party supporter Richard Muller posted that if Zille and the DA had ruled since 1994 and had remained in power for three decades, South Africa would today “be the richest most powerful, happiest nation in the southern hemisphere”.

With around a quarter of Gauteng’s votes counted by early evening, Engelbrecht did not want to be drawn into any prediction of the party’s potential to take over South Africa’s economic hub.

The field was still wide open, she said.

The DA’s KwaZulu-Natal premier candidate and celebrated mayor of uMngeni Chris Pappas said yesterday while it was too early to make a call, there were indications that a coalition government on the east coast was highly likely.

Best campaign in years

Party insiders, who did not want to go on record, agreed with Engelbrecht that the DA had run its best campaign in years, and that the flag-burning advertisement was a breakout move.

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Engelbrecht said: “It made people sit up, take notice and importantly take notice of our message.

“It may have been controversial, but it worked. I applaud whoever came up with it.”