Shacks attached to apartment complexes in Cloetesville. The community struggles with high unemployment, drugs and violence, according to Marshall September. PHOTO: Aurelia Mouton
The Patriotic Alliance (PA), which emerged as the fastest growing party in South Africa in the 29 May polls — including the Western Cape where its message resonated with working-class coloureds — is touting the defection of two Economic Freedom Fighters MPs to its ranks as further evidence of its rising appeal.
Last week, PA co-founder and deputy president Kenny Kunene welcomed former EFF legislators Kenny Motsamai and Patrick Sindane.
The latter said he had left the Red Berets for personal reasons, adding: “PA’s turnaround strategy appealed to me, I fully agree with its position on beneficiation, respect for royal and community leadership. I was also attracted by its position on illegal immigration.”
According to the Kunene, 90% of the votes for the PA came from coloured communities.
“We are now going to continue into the white communities, Indian communities and, most importantly, into the black communities,” he added.
The recently refurbished Cloetesville Sports Grounds in Cloetesville, Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch municipality has upgraded and secured the floodlights, after they were vandalised. PHOTO: Nkululeko Ndlovu
Data from the Electoral Commission of South Africa showed that Gayton McKenzie’s party garnered 7.33% of the votes in the Western Cape, up from 0.03% in the previous elections in 2019.
The PA is now the sixth-largest party in South Africa — an impressive leap from 32nd place in 2019 — with nine seats in the National Assembly, and representation in the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng and Western Cape provincial legislatures.
The PA has also scored a cabinet post in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government of national unity (GNU), with McKenzie’s appointment as minister of sports, arts and culture, while Sheila Mary Peters is a member of the executive council in the Gauteng province.
The party’s performance has been most remarkable in working-class Western Cape coloured communities, such as Saldanha Bay and Cloetesville in Stellenbosch. It is now the second-largest party in Saldanha Bay with 18.93% of the municipality’s vote, according to IEC statistics, and the third-largest in Cloetesville, with 6.24%.
As the PA notched up votes in those areas, the Democratic Alliance (DA) saw its support decrease.
The main concerns in Cloetesville are crime, violence, poverty and unemployment, according to residents and community leaders.
Shack dwelling located in Cloetesville, Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. The community struggles with violence, unemployment, poverty and crime. This is according to Marshall September, a community leader and resident of Cloetesville. Photo: Aurelia Mouton
“What basically happens in our community leading to our problems is that there are no jobs and people are not upskilled with knowledge,” said resident Marshall September, who organised a community march against crime in May.
“A lot of our coloured community is struggling to get jobs and the DA is in charge of Stellenbosch. Regarding opportunities, there is not a lot of opportunities for our coloured community because it will be for a three month or five-month period.”
The DA ward councillor for Cloetesville, Elsabe Vermeulen, declined to comment.
“Unfortunately for the DA, [the PA] has been able to craft a language that speaks to that working-class coloured community. If you look at Gayton McKenzie, the DA may not want to work with him because he is an ex-criminal, but that also works for him,” political analyst Thobani Zikalala said.
The growth of support for the party in Saldanha Bay can also be attributed to its visible engagement over the case of six-year-old Joshlin Smith, who disappeared from the area in February, according to Vernon Vraagom, a councillor for the PA.
“We are on the ground … The Joshlin case sort of elevated the way the PA is seen; I mean the whole case was blown up by our president Gayton McKenzie,” Vraagom said.
McKenzie has been equally vocal — sometimes controversially so — on issues around illegal immigration, community safety, gangsterism and narcotics, which are of particular concern for communities such as Cloetesville and Saldanha Bay.
“If you look at how the election campaign of the Patriotic Alliance was constructed, it was almost mainly constructed from two points: one, representation of coloureds. And if you look in terms of the framing of their message, working-class township-based Cape coloureds in particular,” Zikalala said.
“The second point of their election strategy is that they used the idea of illegal immigrants and community safety as their campaigning point.”
The PA’s inclusion in the GNU gives it an opportunity to further raise its profile, as it looks to take more votes from the DA in the Western Cape in the 2026 local government elections, both Zikalala and Vraagom said.
“That is why Gayton said, if we are part of the opposition in government, we are not going to be heard, that is why we joined the GNU, so we can be part of making decisions,” Vraagom added.