It's game on for Cape Town, but will the DA take the metro again?

It’s game on!

Over the weekend the DA, Good Party, and the FF+ were all putting up posters in Cape Town. (I’m assuming the ANC is still trying to find a printer who is willing to give them a credit line). Let me say right up front, whether you like Patricia de Lille or not, her Good Party wins the prize for the best posters so far. She is featured with boxing gloves on one, next to the words: “Auntie Pat is ready to klap it”. Another one says “Make your hood Good”.

You have to love Western Cape politics.

Last week, Geordin Hill-Lewis, the DA’s mayoral candidate for Cape Town, together with a few of his DA friends were protesting outside Patricia de Lille’s office at Parliament. Their gripe: They wanted Minister de Lille to release some state land (such as the parliamentary housing village and Ysterplaat airbase) so that the City of Cape Town can develop it for low-income housing.

Aunty Pat didn’t appreciate this and promptly called Hill-Lewis stupid, arrogant, and a Johnny-come-lately. She also announced that she would take the media on a walkabout to all the places in the inner city available for low-income housing, which according to her, “the DA doesn’t want to develop since they don’t want people of colour anywhere near the city center”. Of course, Aunty Pat would know since she was the DA mayor for seven years.

So, the party who has been governing Cape Town in some form or another since 2006 is now fighting with the national minister who used to be their mayor because of a lack of housing delivery. She in return is blaming them for the lack of progress. If your head is spinning from all the hypocrisy, join the club. “Only in politics,” comes to mind.

It is true that housing is a massive issue in the Western Cape metropole with around 600 000 people on the waiting list, but of course, this spat is not really about housing.

The DA is nervous. In 2019 they saw a massive decline in their support in the Western Cape. Having retained the metro in 2016 with 67% they could only get 56% three years later.

Recent bi-elections have confirmed a continued decline in support. For example, in Saldanha Bay ward 13, where the councilor resigned from the DA to join GOOD, the DA won the ward – but the party’s support dropped from 71,50% in 2016 to 44,62%. 

In November, they lost a ward in George which was always a stronghold for the party. There are more many more examples. 

Although the DA would never have hoped to win many township wards, they did get some support on the PR side in previous elections.  That is clearly something of the past. Not only can they not win against Ramaphosa’s popularity in the townships, but the racial profile of their senior leadership (Zille, Steenhuisen and now Hill-Lewis) has also put another nail into the coffin of their African support base.

Ultimately, turnout will be the largest determining factor in the DA’s performance in the upcoming election. Dawie Scholz, the election numbers guru, makes the point that race is still the biggest predictor of election outcomes.

He further points out that in 2016, 74% of white, 64% of Coloured, and only 54% of Black voters voted in the Cape Town Metro.

We can assume that the vast majority of black voters will continue to vote ANC or EFF. We can also safely assume that despite the best efforts of the FF+, the majority of white voters in Cape Town will vote DA.

The big question then remains to what extent Coloured voters will turn out and who they will vote for. It is important to remember that Coloured voters constitute around 48% of the voting population in the Western Cape (compared to 16% White and 36% African).  So, you can simply not win an election in Cape Town or the Western Cape without the Coloured vote - as long as they turn up on the day.

Of course, this is where Aunty Pat becomes a problem for the DA. Although she has some support amongst whites, she has been very popular amongst Coloured voters and she is hoping to cash in on that big time. We will have to see if her cabinet position (in the ANC government) has dented her popularity and whether she can have enough face-time with voters before the election, but if the DA support continues to decline and Good’s continues to rise, she might just pull off a kingmaker position.

Not to be left out, the FF+ in the Western Cape has also repositioned itself in the hope of getting some of the Coloured vote.

Believe it or not, in Mossel Bay they have candidates in all 15 wards and only 9 (out of the 15) are white. Even more interestingly, only 32% of the candidates in the Cape Metro are white. (Yes, I also had to pick my jaw off the ground when I heard this).

There is also a proliferation of smaller parties and independents. They are all unknown factors and in the absence of any opinion polling it is very difficult to predict how well they will do. However, it can’t be denied that they all will take tiny bites off the DA’s blue cake.

In the end, the DA will most probably keep control of the Cape Town metro – and many municipalities in the Western Cape. The only question is, with what majority and whether they will finally solve the housing problem.