The Democratic Alliance (DA) retained its outright majority in the Western Cape in the 2024 elections and will remain the ruling party in the provincial legislature while the support base of the African National Congress (ANC) in the province dropped even further than in 2019.
One of the big stories in the Western Cape is the surge in support for the Patriotic Alliance (PA) which is now the third-largest party in the province in terms of electoral support received.
As a result of their strong showing, election outcomes in the Western Cape (as in the past) are being examined through analyses of the ‘coloured vote’.
It may well be that voters classified as coloured had particular grievances and that the PA successfully appealed to those voters on the basis of their identity and those grievances, however, to place the entirety of the explanation for the showing of the PA limits analysis to the supposed racialised behaviour of coloured voters.
This is not an adequate explanation and quite simply lets major political parties off the hook.
Unfortunately, identity-based explanations do not take us very far.
Coloured voters
A preoccupation with the coloured voter as the basis for explanation of the provincial shifts is not only very limited, it is also problematic because it opens up the space for political parties to deflect attention away from themselves at a time when they should be self-reflecting both on their performance and what communities and voters communicated to them during the campaign period.
While voters’ decision-making processes are critically important, they are only one part of the electoral equation; political parties and the choices they offer constitute the other part.
These two sides of the electoral equation meet up in a particular historical economic and social context where national, provincial and local developments play a role.
It is therefore important that micro-level analyses of voter motivations be supplemented with systematic research on the context of the elections and the quality of choices offered to voters by political parties – this represents a shift in focus from ‘voters as choosers’ to political parties and their leaders as ‘the organisers of political choice’.
Indeed, if we are to look at the behavioural motivations of voters in the Western Cape, we have to consider the full electoral history of the province where three different political parties (namely the National Party/New National Party – NP/NNP, the ANC and the DA) have held power.
In 1994, the NP won an outright majority primarily by capitalising on the highly-racialised fears of voters in the province.
The 1999 election saw a complete realignment of politics in the province with the ANC receiving the largest share of the vote, but not an outright majority.
The DP doubled its share of the vote in the Western Cape and, in the end, a NNP/DP alliance kept the ANC out of power at provincial level in 1999.
In 2004 the inconsistencies in NNP rhetoric finalised the demise of the party.
Its support base was decimated by its incongruent and internally inconsistent campaign messages as well as by organisational difficulties.
On the other hand, the ANC ran a campaign celebrating ten years of democracy in South Africa.
In 2004, the ANC took control of the provincial government in the Western Cape but the DA’s support base began to climb with the DA contending that a vote for the NNP was as good as a vote for the ANC.
In 2009, with the NNP absorbed into the ANC, the contest in the Western Cape was between the DA and the ANC.
The DA’s campaign, consistent with its previous hard-hitting messages, took place in a completely different political context.
National events between 2004 and 2009 had created a situation in which the party’s messages were much more salient to voters in the Western Cape.
In 2009, the Western Cape ANC campaign mirrored the party’s national campaign, which focused on putting Jacob Zuma into power as South Africa’s President.
Messages about the challenges to democracy posed by a Zuma-led government and ANC dominance now resonated with voters in the Western Cape.
The DA seized control from the ANC in 2009 and has retained control of the province since then.
Electoral trends
This brief outline of electoral trends in the province since 1994 shows that political developments (both national and provincial) as well as the behaviour and campaign efforts of political parties provides plausible reasons for the dramatic political changes that have occurred.
What the electoral trends in the province also show is an electorate that is willing to reward and punish political parties.
It points to an electorate evaluating the rhetoric and actions of political parties and leaders at both national and provincial level.
It also provides an indication that voters in the province are not wedded to one political party despite the DA’s dominance since 2009.
The implication of this is that the demographic nature of the electorate should not constitute the entirety of explanations about the electoral outcome.
This is not to say that we can discard the issue of race and other forms of identity as we try to understand election outcomes in the province.
The Western Cape (as elsewhere in South Africa) remains highly racialised.
Historically defined ‘race’ groups in the Western Cape continue to have vastly different life experiences and are confronted with very different forms of persuasion and different information networks.
Life opportunities in the province are still, to a large extent, racially structured.
It is for this reason that campaigning in the Western Cape since 1994 has historically been characterised by aggressive appeals to race-based fears.
Additionally, we cannot escape the fact that inequality remains a major challenge in the province which continues to be plagued by service-delivery issues.
Socio-economic challenges
Unless substantive progress is made in dealing with these socio-economic challenges and inequality, the province will remain a potent environment for race-based mobilisation and campaign efforts.
When the demographic characteristics of the electorate are regarded as the primary explanation for an electoral outcome, it can also become the determinant of future electoral strategy.
This is particularly concerning because it provides the basis for political parties to resort to attack politics and appeals to prejudice and stereotypes.
In fact, the DA and the ANC should be taking a long and hard post-election look at themselves and be asking questions about the underlying reasons for the deep-seated disillusionment in many communities.
If they do not undertake a genuine authentic introspection process, it is hard to see how the situation will change in future elections.
