The PA's growth in the Western Cape
Almost every municipality is in play for the next local government election
The Patriotic Alliance (PA) has been in the news in the last month for reasons unrelated to politics: deputy president of the party, Kenny Kunene, was suspended by party leader Gayton McKenzie for the controversy surrounding Kunene’s association with accused murder syndicate kingpin, Katiso Molefe. Kunene also resigned as PR councillor in Johannesburg, leaving open his position as MMC of transport in the metro.
In a similar fashion to the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, the PA’s organisational and ethical troubles have had little effect on the party’s performance at the polls. From February 2023 to July 2025 the party won 13 wards in by-elections. Nine of these wards are in the Western Cape.
In this article we look at the growth of the PA in the Western Cape since the 2021 local government election (LGE), both in the wards it has won and the other wards it has contested. We also examine how the strategic approach to local government elections differs from national / provincial elections (NPEs) and how the PA has exploited this to maximise its growth in local government. Finally, we look at the implications for the Western Cape in the next LGE and the threat that the PA poses to the Democratic Alliance (DA).
The PA’s growth in the Western Cape
The party was formed in November 2013 but failed to make an impact in the 2014 and 2019 NPEs and the 2016 LGE; it won no seats and fewer than 25 000 votes in the three general elections. It established a beachhead in the Gauteng metros in the 2021 LGE, particularly in Johannesburg where it has been a kingmaker for almost four years.
Its achievements in the Western Cape were limited to a handful of seats, mostly in the Central Karoo and West Coast districts. The party’s ability to leverage these seats in council, however, is a good example of the difference between NPEs and LGEs - particularly in the Western Cape.
The PA won three seats in the Beaufort West local municipality and one ward in Laingsburg, forming coalition governments with the ANC in these municipalities and handing McKenzie the mayoral chain of the Central Karoo district municipality.
Four seats doesn’t sound like a lot (and the party won nothing in Prince Albert), but there are only seven council seats in Laingsburg and 13 seats in Beaufort West. Most of the local municipalities in the Western Cape have fewer than 30 seats.
The map below shows the PA’s results in the proportional representation (PR) vote in the 2021 LGE. There were just 13 wards out of 406 where the party won more than 20% of the vote.
South Africa’s electoral system is designed to reward proportional representation, and the PA’s seats in 2021 were all PR seats apart from two wards in Beaufort West and one in Matzikama. Smaller parties, including the PA and Al Jama-ah, typically establish themselves in local government before growing in subsequent elections.
The PA seemed to be spinning its wheels in 2022: it only contested three wards out of the seven by-elections on offer in the province, and it stumbled badly by losing its Matzikama ward to the DA.
It did a lot better from 2023 until the 2024 national election, contesting 14 of the 17 Western Cape wards on offer and increasing its share of the vote in every ward. It won five wards during this period, three from the DA and one apiece from the ANC and GOOD, and looked very strong in the three months before the general election.
Its performance was no fluke, as the map below shows:
The PA grew significantly in a number of municipalities, including Oudtshoorn, Cape Aghulas, George, Mossel Bay, Langeberg, Breede Valley, and in the five local municipalities in the West Coast District. The party won over 20% of the provincial vote in 90 wards, winning more than 25% of the vote in 56 of them. That 25% threshold is important, as we will illustrate in the next section.
The party lost momentum right after the 2024 election, contesting just four of the twelve Western Cape wards on offer between June and October 2024. It lost both of its Beaufort West wards to the DA and was squeezed in a very crowded field in Ward 2 of Cederberg. The only bright spot was winning Ward 21 in George from the GOOD party, where it dominated with almost 52% of the vote. The party may have suffered from a resourcing issue in the aftermath of the general election.
From November 2024 onwards the PA righted its ship, contesting eight of the nine wards on offer and winning three of them, two from the DA and one from the ANC. It also grew its share of the vote in almost every ward, compared with its 2024 showing.
Contesting nationally versus locally
All South African general elections are based on proportional representation, and every party focuses on winning the maximum number of votes. This means, in general, campaigning in the cities and large towns and prioritising the metros and the largest local municipalities - regardless of the type of election.
Local elections are slightly different. Half of the council seats in local government are ward seats, and they are won on first-past-the-post system. Almost all of these seats are won by either the ANC or the DA, although the share of ward seats won by other parties has increased in the last five years, due in no small part to the PA’s efforts.
Smaller parties will still focus on maximising the number of votes above focusing more resources on a particular ward; the electoral system does reward a scattershot approach. By-elections are obviously different, and their increased contestation has resulted in smaller and smaller margins of victory.
Ward 20 in George is a good example of how the calculus has changed. The PA won the ward off GOOD in a July 2023 by-election with just 25.8% of the vote. The ANC, DA, and the Plaaslike Besorgde Inwoners (PBI) each won more than 20% of the vote too.
The PA is standing toe-to-toe with the DA and ANC across the province, and when the MK and GOOD are introduced into the mix it’s highly likely that there will be more wards won with under 30% of the vote. That is why we have chosen 25% of the vote as a cut-off for identifying DA and ANC wards at risk of changing hands. The PA won over 25% in 56 wards last year - almost one in seven wards in the Western Cape.
A local government election is also not about aggregating the vote at national or provincial level. The Cape Town metro has about two-thirds of the province’s registered voters, and you have to pour resources into the metro to win anything in an NPE. In an LGE, where one ward in a small municipality could win you a big seat at a small table, there is a much bigger incentive to split your campaigning resources.
What damage could the PA do to the DA in the next local election? The DA is already struggling in the Central Karoo and the PA is set to inflict more pain on the party in the Garden Route district, particularly in George, Knysna, Mossel Bay, and Oudtshoorn, but also in Bitou. The PA’s growth in the West Coast district poses threats in Matzikama, Cederberg and Saldanha Bay.
The one consolation that the DA has - for now - is the PA’s low representation in Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, but if the PA’s success last month in the Drakenstein by-election is any sign, even that comfort is not assured.