PA increases its margin over the DA in Swartland byelection

The Patriotic Alliance has strengthened its grip this week on a ward it previously won from the DA in Malmesbury, in the Swartland municipality.

The PA’s Raymond Ricardo Mains was elected councillor of Ward 11 in the municipality on Wednesday.

He received 1,373 votes (53%) while DA candidate Moos Jaanse came second with 1,090 votes (42%). The ANC’s Jaqueline van Rooyen attracted 104 votes (4%) and the local Truth and Solidarity Movement scraped up 11 votes.

The party first wrestled the ward from the DA by 28 votes in 2024. It recently terminated the membership of its councillor, which led to the vacancy that triggered the byelection.

This is a key ward where the PA has managed to increase its majority against the historic blue wall of the DA in the Western Cape.

Elections analyst Wayne Sussman said the outcome was “encouraging” for the PA.

“The PA continues to generate strong turnout enthusiasm. The turnout yesterday in Swartland almost matched the 2024 provincial election turnout in the ward. In the PA voting station stronghold of the Indoor Sports Centre, 62% of voters showed up, vs 48% in the 2024 byelection.”

PA spokesperson Steve Motale said the party was proud to have retained the ward, with a substantially increased majority.

“When we first won this ward off the DA in 2024, the margin was 28 votes. Yesterday we held it with more than half of the vote, on a turnout of 58% and a margin of 283 votes over the DA. This is a party that is growing, in a part of the Western Cape the DA long treated as its safest part of the country.”

Motale said the message from the people was clear and that they trusted the PA to represent them and put their interests first.

“We head into full campaigning for the November 4 elections with real momentum in the Western Cape, and with proof that our support here is not a one-off but off a base that deepens, election after election,” he said.

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