Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie was emphatic at the party’s Cape Town election campaign launch in a packed City Hall last month. “Ons gaan in daarso [We’re going there],” he said, pointing in the direction of the mayor’s office.
Hundreds of PA supporters were no less enthusiastic. In a sea of green — the party’s colours — T-shirts read: “Grond toe [To the ground]” and “Ons baiza nie [We are not scared]”.
Donna Stephens, a former PA provincial legislator and now a city councillor, was in the crowd, eager to hear what mayoral candidate Cheslyn Daniels and McKenzie had to say.
“I believe in serving the community, and we are fighting for the community … that is what we stand for,” she tells the FM. “We are growing very fast … and there’s a possibility that we can unseat the DA in the Western Cape.”
Unseat the DA from its outright majority in the Cape Town, perhaps; certainly not from its position as largest party.
As PA national spokesperson Steve Motale tells the FM, the real story in Cape Town in November isn’t whether the DA holds the metro. “It’s whether an outright DA majority — something taken for granted here for years — survives contact with an electorate that’s shown, ward after ward, that it’s willing to vote differently. That shift is already under way and we intend to keep building on it.”
The PA isn’t new to the electoral scene; it was started in 2013 by McKenzie and Kenny Kunene. But it is only in recent years that it has made its presence felt — and then only incrementally. In the 2016 local government elections it won just 0.16% in the province against the DA’s 62%; by 2021 that had climbed to 2.59% (DA: 53%). On the provincial ballot in the 2024 national election, it was up to 7.8% against the DA’s 55%. Since the start of 2025, it has won eight by-elections in the province.
Motale is confident ahead of the elections. “The numbers back that up, not just the mood in the room at City Hall. Over the past year, the PA has taken wards off both the DA and the ANC across the province: Stellenbosch, Oudtshoorn, George, Malmesbury and others. That’s not a one-off protest vote; it’s a pattern building towards November,” he says.
Many believe the PA will be the DA’s strongest competition in the election. Election analyst Wayne Sussman says the PA and the FF Plus are the biggest threats to the DA in Cape Town and the province.
His election data suggests the PA is on track to improve on 2021 and 2024. “The PA has been able to do something very difficult in politics: getting voters to turn out who have not shown up in previous elections and by-elections.”
Turnouts for by-elections have often been “astonishingly higher” than for national elections. “That ability to get voters to turn out who haven’t before is significant and will propel the PA,” says Sussman.
Local government analyst Paul Berkowitz of The South Africa Brief agrees. “I think the momentum will continue. The PA has been building constituencies in these rural municipalities and the DA is vulnerable in these areas.”
The party’s ability to recruit community leaders will be important come November 4, he adds. “Local government elections rely on local structures, particularly in the more rural Western Cape municipalities.”
In his view, “the PA’s kingmaker status will definitely grow in Western Cape municipalities”.
A voice for the marginalised
Geronimo de Klerk is a young activist from Elsies River on the Cape Flats. He’s been involved in grassroots organisations for years and, in many ways, epitomises the type of person the party seeks to attract to its ranks.
“I always say that change can come from youth and communities, and I see the PA as people who are on the ground,” he tells the FM. “We need to make sure that everyone votes for the PA … because our people need service delivery.”
It’s a common refrain — one Stephens picks up on too, as does Hein Moses from Mitchells Plain. In part, the appeal of the PA is its representation of what he characterises as the marginalised.
“The biggest population of our coloured people is in Mitchells Plain,” Moses says. “It’s a reality; we are on the other side of the mountain. For all these years, our people were just used for votes and not looked after.”
De Klerk expresses a similar sentiment when it comes to the youth. “For too long, young people have been spoken about instead of being spoken to. We are expected to wait our turn while unemployment, crime, poverty, substance abuse and a lack of opportunities continue to rob our generation of its future.”
As Motale tells it: “We don’t apologise for representing communities, particularly working-class coloured communities, who have long felt like an afterthought to both the DA and the ANC. If standing up for people who feel unseen is what some analysts want to label ‘identity politics’, we’ll take that over the alternative, which is pretending those communities’ specific frustrations don’t exist.”
It’s not just marginalisation, Motale says; the PA also taps into issues — crime, housing, service delivery, dignity — that aren’t unique to any one group. “Call it populism if you like; we call it listening to voters other parties have taken for granted.”
Housing and crime will be important focus areas in the run-up to the election. Berkowitz says: “Housing affordability is a growing concern for Cape Town residents. We can see other parties [like GOOD] campaigning on public housing. Crime can also be an important focus area because of the high rate in the townships. Outside of Cape Town there are other important issues, like employment and the youth drug epidemic.”
Indeed, housing and crime will be the two main focus areas of the PA’s campaign, says Motale.
“With the housing backlog, the pace of delivery across the metro just isn’t matching the scale of the crisis … under the current administration, and it’s what our mayoral campaign will target directly. On crime, particularly gang violence and its grip on the Cape Flats, communities want visible, consequence-driven policing, not just statistics in a council report.”
Beyond those two core issues, he says, the party is also campaigning hard on basic service delivery and giving councillors who actually answer the phone to marginalised wards.
Cape Town mayoral hopeful Daniels touched on these themes in his address at the campaign launch. “We will build a Cape Town where everyone can afford to live. Where Gugulethu is not forgotten, where Delft is not neglected, where Manenberg is not abandoned, where Mitchells Plain is not an afterthought. We are here to unite everyone under the PA banner,” he said.
Of course, Daniels will have to overcome his own obstacles in campaigning; he was arrested earlier this month after an alleged domestic incident. McKenzie continues to support him, but it’s still not a good look for the party. It’s also not the first setback to the PA’s campaign in the Mother City: prominent young politician Liam Jacobs was initially touted as the party’s mayoral candidate before he did a dramatic U-turn and rejoined the DA.
Setbacks or not, McKenzie is excited about the polls — though he couldn’t resist a jibe at the DA and its mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis, who he called “Downhill Lewis”.
The DA, for its part, is ready for the competition. Responding to the PA’s threat at a press club event in Cape Town earlier this year, Hill-Lewis said politics is always competitive. “We do have a proper fight on our hands with the PA. The competition itself does not surprise me. That is why we don’t take anything for granted in Cape Town. We know that we have to work for every single vote.”
