Winde: DA wants to rescue struggling Beaufort West from PA-ANC-EFF alliance

CAPE TOWN - Western Cape Premier Alan Winde on Thursday took the Democratic Alliance (DA)'s campaign to the Patriotic Alliance (PA)'s stronghold of Beaufort West. 

Some pundits believe the PA could pose a real threat to the DA,  particularly in outlying towns where its leader, Gayton McKenzie, has captured the imagination of coloured communities in particular. 

But on Thursday, Winde told residents of the Karoo town that most of McKenzie's big promises made when he was the district mayor had not been realised.

While the Patriotic Alliance recently brought the battle for the Western Cape to the DA's doorstep in the Cape Town metro, Winde on Thursday did the same in Beaufort West. 

It's a town the DA has not been able to capture and a regular scene of municipal instability, with at least five Patriotic Alliance mayors elected since the 2021 local government polls. 

Winde said the DA wanted to rescue one of the province’s worst-performing municipalities from the clutches of the PA's corrupt alliance with the African National Congress (ANC) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). 

"You were promised solar plants, businesses, and factories, clean water, swimming pools and the eradication of the bucket toilet system but little of that has come true." 

Winde said the DA was uncomfortable with recent polling which suggests only a 53% victory for the party in the Western Cape. 

The province has been under DA control since 2009.

"The residents of Beaufort West know what is at stake, because they have experienced first-hand, the destruction of their municipality at the hands of the Patriotic Alliance." 

Winde said that service delivery has collapsed in Knysna thanks to the same coalition.