The Western Cape has long been regarded as a bastion of the Democratic Alliance in South Africa. The province has been the heartbeat of the party since the DA’s landmark victory in 2009 when they won a majority of the popular votes and seats in the Provincial Parliament. Since then, the people of the western cape have continually put their faith in the DA every election, and in return, the DA has provided the most successful governance of any of the nine provinces. For what is now going on 15 years, this has been the strong and prosperous relationship between the Western Cape and the party that governs it.

However, in recent years the mandate of the Western Cape’s vote has grown to be more ambitious and internally focused. It is no longer good enough for the DA to work with the scraps that fall off the plate of the national government. Western Cape voters are experiencing mounting frustration with the DA’s inability to combat the issues that affect them most deeply: Crime, quality of life, economic stability and growth, electricity supply, water supply, and advanced infrastructure such as public transport. All of which have been deteriorating for decades in the province.

This inability of the DA to address these issues is, of course, not a direct product of the functional government they have delivered over the years. Instead, it is the national government, controlled by the ANC, that has the final say over almost every aspect of governance in the Western Cape. The declining quality of life, increasing crime and rising unemployment are largely attributable to the disastrous governance of the ANC over the last thirty years.

However, this runs deeper than the ever-present discontent and hatred for the nationally ruling party, that sentiment has existed in the Western Cape for almost as long as the ANC has been in power. No, this is part of a wider recognition of what is needed for the Western Cape to better itself for good: Self-determination. The right of the Cape to take back control over its destiny. The logic behind this desire for self-determination is quite simple at its root: The people of the Western Cape should be the ones who have the ultimate say in the governance and decision making of the Western Cape, whether that be through greater devolution of powers, a federal system of governance similar to that of the United States, or even outright independence from South Africa.

The DA, for its part, has attempted to quell these growing calls for self-determination by attempting to get the national government to agree to renegotiating of the relationship between the Western Cape and the national government. The leader of the DA, John Steenhuisen, has made a habit of railing against the centralised nature of South Africa, going as far as stating “That South Africa has pursued a centralised system for long enough to feel the reality of the failure.” The DA even has “the devolution of power to locate government as close as possible to the people” as an official principle in the party’s constitution.

However, in the Party’s 2024 election manifesto, the emphasis is distinctly not on devolution to the provinces as a general principle. The only promise of explicit devolution to the provinces that the Democratic Alliance makes is to “decentralise policing to capable provinces”. This inhibition encapsulates the DA’s current lack of imagination, or perhaps more accurately, lack of willingness to tackle the root of the issue. However, this is no mistake. This is a deliberate attempt to maintain its national ambitions while retaining the Western Cape vote.

The problem that the DA faces is essentially this: They must push for greater devolution of power so that the Western Cape vote does not see the party as an obstacle in the province’s crusade towards self-determination. On the other hand: the DA cannot be seen as the “Western Cape Party” and tie itself to the idea of Western Cape self-determination or independence, an idea that, while popular in the Cape, is broadly politically unpalatable outside the province. This tension between the DA’s national ambition and its provincial mandate leaves the party between a rock and a hard place. This tension is not good for the Western Cape. It is fundamentally holding the province back from realising its ambition, and its desire to become something greater than just South Africa’s cash cow. The ruling party of the Western Cape should be the party pushing the hardest towards self-determination, and yet the DA has shown that they are not yet committed to the idea as it suffers from conflicting interests. The Cape and its people are being robbed of their right to decide their future.

The Democratic alliance will, in all likelihood, never govern South Africa. Their national ambitions are misplaced and almost certainly delusional. All the party’s posturing towards “rescuing” South Africa is both self-aggrandising and overly charitable to the other 8 provinces in the union. Why must South Africa be saved from a government that they have consistently voted in for 30 years? Is it not the Western Cape that must be rescued from a government that it has never voted for?

In the end, it is the Western Cape that has given the DA the platform to campaign nationally and bring the province’s ideas of liberalism and non-racialism to the national forum. It's been 15 years since 2009. The results are in: the DA peaked at 22% in general elections and the polling aggregate places the party around the same mark for the upcoming 2024 election. The DA will, evidently, never govern South Africa. They are simply not selling a product that the rest of South Africa is buying.

The Western Cape has grown discontent with the current arrangement of the DA simply using it as the political launching point for its national ambitions. As a result, we’ve seen a rise of both coloured-identity parties, such as the National Coloured Congress, and the Patriotic Alliance as well as parties calling for a referendum on Cape Independence, such as the Freedom Front Plus (VF+) and the single issue Referendum Party (RP).

These parties pose a significant threat to the DA’s ability to maintain a majority in the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, which stands at 24 seats, just 2 more than the 22 required to form a majority government. In a scenario where the DA would have to form a coalition to govern with a majority, the party would be left with potentially only two options: form a coalition with one of the parties pushing for Western Cape Independence (the VF+ or RP) or do so with some truly disastrous candidates (the ANC, EFF, or PA). My fear, a fear shared by many in the Cape, is that the DA will sacrifice the Cape in pursuit of its national ambitions and enter into government with either the ANC or some other party with similarly little interest in recognising the Western Cape its right to self-determination.

I would like to go on the record as saying that the Democratic Alliance is not the enemy of the Western Cape. They have delivered relatively good governance during their tenure as the ruling party of the province. They believe in the principles of liberalism and non-racialism that The Cape holds dear, it's why we elected them in the first place. However, as the DA has grown and focused more and more on its national ambitions, it has become abundantly clear that this has come at the cost of the direct connection between the province and the party that both have enjoyed for many years. It's now up to the DA to decide what really matters: their delusions of governing South Africa nationally, or the people that have given so much for the party. Will they sell out and get into bed with the ANC, or will they come around to the idea of Western Cape self-determination?

As the Western Cape navigates its path towards self-determination, the DA stands at a pivotal juncture, compelled to reconcile its national aspirations with the demands of its provincial base. The party's response to this fundamental tension will not only determine its political trajectory but also resonate deeply with the aspirations of the people it has long represented.

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