Mzansi Now: The Patriotic Alliance Makes Ground In the Eastern Cape, Western Cape

On Wednesday, March 18, three wards in the Eastern Cape held municipal by-elections for ​​Buffalo City, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and the Dr Beyers Naude Municipality. These by-elections occur when ward seats become vacant between general elections. The results signaled incremental but notable gains for the Patriotic Alliance (PA), a small opposition party seeking to expand its national footprint.

In the Dr Beyers Naude Municipality, the PA won a sweeping 40% of the vote, with Nathan Jacobs elected to represent Ward 7. The PA didn’t earn as much success in Buffalo City and the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Municipality, where the ANC took the majority of the votes, earning 80% in Buffalo City and 63% in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. 

The Patriotic Alliance’s Growing Success

The PA was founded in 2013 with the primary goal of mitigating gang violence in the Western Cape, but has since expanded its main objectives. The party’s manifesto outlines six priorities: Reintroducing religious education in schools; combating illegal immigration; introducing mandatory military service for unemployed youth; bringing back the death penalty; strengthening the role of traditional and royal courts, and promoting fracking and industrialization.

In 2016, the party won its first parliamentary seats in major cities like Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay, Ekurhuleni and Cape Town. In the 2021 local government elections, the party won over 80 seats, and currently holds 97 as of the recent by-elections. 

In September 2025, the PA gained substantial ground in the Eastern Cape, unseating the ANC with almost 48% of the vote. A month later, the party secured seats in the Diepkloof–Noordgesig Municipality of Gauteng and the Swellendam Municipality of the Western Cape, capturing 30.5% and 50.7% of the vote respectively. These by-elections further diminished the ANC’s historic hold over the country, leading up to more losses in November 2025, when the PA won the Kou-Kamma Municipality in Eastern Cape and the municipalities of Mossel Bay and Drakenstein in Western Cape. 

The Mossel Bay and Drakenstein municipalities were both previously held by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the ANC’s primary opposition. Winning these seats signaled crossover appeal, where the PA was able to secure support from those who had previously been behind not one, but two political giants. 

Voter Incentives

The PA is benefitting from falling support for the ANC. The 2024 general elections saw the first ever coalition government for South Africa, where the ANC won less than 50% of the vote across the country and is now forced to collaborate with other parties on national decisions. Since then, negative sentiment toward the ANC is only growing. The ANC lost support in 63% of the 182 by-elections held between the May 2024 general elections and December 2025, with many of these losses benefitting the DA and the PA. In this period, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape were the only two provinces that consistently held support for the ANC — until now.

With rampant power outages and the highest unemployment rate in the nation, the Eastern Cape is turning its back on the ANC. Many residents feel that the ANC has failed to meaningfully improve living conditions, and thus have become more receptive to alternative political voices that promise change. During the 2024 general election, some longtime ANC supporters in the Eastern Cape told Reuters they felt the party had lost touch with their daily realities. A 37‑year‑old community health worker in Qunu said she was tired of decades of minimal change in poor service delivery and would consider voting for an opposition party because “the ANC hasn’t delivered on basic needs.” Others echoed similar sentiments about stagnant job prospects and inadequate infrastructure in rural parts of the province. The PA has taken advantage of this disillusionment, holding rallies in towns like Gqeberha to garner support around key issues like service delivery, illegal immigration, and poor infrastructure. 

The PA’s growth has the DA sounding alarm bells. John Steenhuisen, the DA party leader, asked the DA’s executive to conduct a review of why the PA has succeeded in the Western Cape following the loss of the Mossel Bay and Drakenstein municipalities in November 2025. At the time, Steenhuisen noted that the DA had been able to retain control over the Eastern Cape, but the PA’s latest win over the Dr Beyers Naude Municipality presents new cause for concern. As for the ANC, the party has not publicly announced a change of strategy in response to their continued decline in support. While the PA is quickly rising as a major competitor, the ANC is losing votes to other smaller parties as well, such as ActionSA, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, and the Economic Freedom Fighters. In order to maintain their reach, they must position themselves as a better alternative to each of these parties, instead of positing themselves against the PA specifically. 

These by-elections are often seen as indicators of changing voter sentiment. As the November 2026 municipal elections approach, the DA and the ANC must campaign against the PA’s growing reach in order to maintain their dominance over district, metropolitan and local municipalities in each of the country's nine provinces.