Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie says his party will be the kingmaker in most hung councils, and has warned the ANC against rescuing the DA.
Speaking at the national Results Operations Centre on Friday, 6 November, he said that the ANC and DA would have to come to the PA in councils such as Mangaung and Hantam unless they worked with each other.
“Look at Mangaung. Look at Hantam in the Northern Cape. Unless the ANC and the DA go together, they have to come to the PA. It would be very unwise for the ANC to rescue the DA, because they just did negative campaigning,” McKenzie said.
He said the PA had been written off before the election.
“Like you guys, they’ve been listening to all the polls, and I said polls are for strippers. They said we were going to be nowhere. They wrote us off. They said we are nowhere. We are one of four parties leading a municipality. We are going to be the kingmaker in most municipalities,” he said.
McKenzie first said the PA was not keen on coalitions, then said he was excited to be part of one.
“As far as coalitions are concerned, we’re not really keen on coalitions this time. We’ve seen that when you do well, the majority party will say it’s an ANC-led coalition or a DA-led coalition,” he said.
In the same interview, he said: “I’m excited this time around to be part of a coalition set-up. Nothing falls off if we are not part of it.”
McKenzie, who is also the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, took aim at the DA over the PA’s win in Prince Albert, where it took four of the municipality’s five wards.
“We always knew we were going to do well. The DA was the one lying and saying the people of the Central Karoo hate us. I showed those people in Beaufort West in their toilets when I came there, and the DA said I lied about that. But the people, the recipients of the bucket toilets, have voted for me. The people have seen the lies of the mayor there. There are five wards. We won four,” he said.
He also said the DA’s losses were being ignored.
“People don’t talk about the DA basically losing Swellendam. There are 14 municipalities in the Western Cape where we’ve done well. But people just concentrate on where the ANC has lost,” McKenzie said.
In Swellendam, the ANC had the most seats, with four of 11, and no party had a majority.
Asked whether the PA’s growth reflected confidence in him or a protest vote, McKenzie credited the party.
“It’s not confidence in me. It’s confidence in the Patriotic Alliance. There are 500 parties. They could have taken the protest vote there, and they gave it to the PA. I wasn’t on the ballot. I wasn’t on the poster,” he said.
He predicted the ANC would end as the biggest party but would need a partner.
“I do think that if the counting goes on, the ANC will become the biggest party. They will not win outright. They will need a partner to continue with them,” he said.
With 86% of votes counted on Friday afternoon, the ANC led nationally on 31.9%, ahead of the DA on 24.1% and MK on 9.4%. In the Western Cape, the PA was third on 8.3%.
The PA won 0.95% of the vote in the 2021 municipal elections. In Mangaung, it won 1.8% in 2021, and was on about 6% in early counts this week.
In October, McKenzie banned local media from interviewing party members or attending PA events, accusing the media of bias in favour of the DA.