Written by Joe Bavier and Wendell Rolfe
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Looking out his window at Cape Town's False Bay, Nick Serra acknowledges that things are looking up in South Africa's second-largest city, a stronghold of the opposition Democratic Alliance.
But that does not mean he is ready to see the party or its 48-year-old leader, John Steenhausen, running the rest of the country.
“Imagine an old white man as president of South Africa,” said Serra, a 44-year-old white citizen from Johannesburg who moved to Cape Town in 2022.
In a seismic turn, voters this week dismantled the majority the ANC had enjoyed since the end of white minority rule in 1994, leaving the late Nelson Mandela's party no choice but to seek a coalition with a major rival. .
Despite their lackluster performance, an improvement of just one percentage point over the last vote in 2019, the Democratic Party and Steenhausen suddenly found themselves in an unprecedented position.
The ANC remains the largest party despite the damage done by an arrogant rival led by former President Jacob Zuma, and is therefore expected to retain the presidency.
But as the second largest political force with 21.8% of the vote, the Democratic Alliance is one of three parties with the influence to help it form a new majority and potentially shape the future of the nation.
“We have said for the last 30 years that the way to save South Africa is to break the ANC majority. We have done that,” Steenhausen said after the outcome of Wednesday's vote became clear.
However, in a country with a painful history of legalized racism – apartheid – where white South Africans make up just 7% of the population, the Democratic Alliance is struggling to shed its image as a party of wealthy whites and prove that it reflects the make-up. And everyone's aspirations.
For political analyst Melanie Verwoerd, the problem is as much ideological as it is racial.
Steenhausen, an economic liberal, has pledged to end the system of racial quotas for employers created by the ANC to address decades of racial discrimination, and wants to relax labor laws.
In a country of 62 million, where 24 million live on welfare, he is pushing for a smaller role for government.
“I don’t think they set out to be a party of white privilege,” Verwoerd said. “But in the end they are.”
This is a common accusation that the DA has repeatedly rejected.
“Better than other provinces”
In contrast to South Africa's broader economic stagnation, crisis-level unemployment, and crumbling infrastructure, the Western Cape – a province that the Democratic Party has controlled since 2009 – has performed significantly better.
It boasts the lowest unemployment rate in the country. Its main city Cape Town is a major tourist destination. Even the country's notorious power outages were less severe.
According to one poll, the Western Cape and Cape Town are viewed as the best province and major city in South Africa.
“It's better than other provinces,” said Lauren Musgrave, 31, a Cape Town resident and Democratic Party supporter. “They are the people who should rule the entire country.”
But in a city still deeply segregated – the lingering legacy of apartheid's legal separation of the races – not everyone agrees.
Black tour guide Theo Macavella, 39, frequents the immaculately maintained waterfront and crime-ravaged poor towns where the army was deployed in the past to quell deadly gang violence.
“They talk in a good way,” he said. “But on the ground, if you're from here, you know what's going on.”
Solly Malazzi, leader of the Black Democratic Party, says the party is making progress with black voters.
“Our support among black voters is on an upward trajectory,” he said, claiming that the party had improved its results in black-majority areas in Wednesday’s election.
In the Western Cape, Democratic Alliance officials say Cape Town and provincial governments spend more on services for poor areas than rich areas.
Zwelivilele “Mandla” Mandela – Nelson Mandela’s grandson and traditional tribal leader – is not convinced.
He told Reuters: “As much as they can claim success, these successes are still the domain of the few.” “The poorest of the poor still live without access to clean drinking water, and without any proper sanitation systems.”
A political homeland for all?
When Phumzile Van Dam joined the DA, she thought she had found a political home.
She was elected to Parliament in 2014 and became the party's spokesperson, among a group of young black lawmakers – including new national leader Mmusi Maimane – who focused on making the Democratic Alliance more inclusive.
“It was an exciting time,” Van Dam told Reuters. “The message was really about building a home for all South Africans.”
For a while at least, it seemed as if things were heading in the right direction, she said. That changed after the disappointing 2019 election in which the Democratic Party lost a portion of white Afrikaans-speaking voters.
“There was a fear of all these blacks coming in…look how much they changed the party,” Van Dam said.
Maimane, the Democratic Party's first black leader, resigned, accusing some within the party of undermining his efforts to appeal to black voters. He was replaced by Steenhuisen.
The black Democratic Party mayor of Johannesburg also stepped down, and other Democratic Party lawmakers followed suit in the following years, including Van Dam.
She said she does not consider the DA racist. It simply reflects the country's broader struggles with race, and for her as a black lawmaker, it no longer feels like a welcoming home.
“While individuals are entitled to accounts of their own experiences, I believe nothing could be further from the truth,” Malazzi told Reuters in response to Van Damme's assertion that the defense law had become unwelcome.
Helen Zille, another prominent leader, pointed to the DA's 452 black public representatives as evidence of her commitment to inclusion.
However, seven of the 13-member national leadership are white, including Zille who was once suspended from the party for writing on Twitter that the legacy of colonialism was not entirely negative. Zille, who was a prominent anti-apartheid journalist, later apologized for her comments.
“The only party that demands diverse leadership is the Democratic Party, and we are the only ones that do that,” she told Reuters when asked about the leadership lineup.
“We are the only ones who are constantly criticized.”
(Reporting and writing by Joe Bavier in Johannesburg; Additional reporting by Tanwar Anders; Editing by Jason Neely)