It's been a while since the DA and Patriotic Alliance in the Western Cape were able to work together. In the Matzikama Municipality, two of the PA's most important people have left the party to join the DA. In a press conference at the DA's provincial offices in Cape Town on Tuesday afternoon, PA leaders Brenden Owies and Christo Boks said that they had left the party.
People in the Matzikama Municipality told them that after a meeting with their community on Sunday, they wanted them to work with the DA and not work for the ANC. The PA has broken up with the DA in the municipality, which is run by a DA mayor. Allegations that PA leader Gayton McKenzie was insulted led the party to break away from the DA/PA alliance. The party may now work with the ANC to run Matzikama.
Boks said that his constituents didn't want the PA to work with the ANC, but the DA instead. He said, "I made this decision for the good of the people who live in my town." Our community did not want us to do that. Owies said this in the same way as Boks. People in Boks's PA ward are councillors, and Owies is the PA's leader in the city.
Towns like Vredendal and Klawer are in Matzikama, which is a rural area on the West Coast. There will be a municipal election in 2021. The DA got 37% of the vote and six seats on the council, so they won. The PA came in third with 12,52% of the vote, which gave the party two seats on the council.
Matzikama is one of two places where the DA and the PA worked together. According to a News24 report, DA Western Cape interim leader Tertuis Simmers is said to have said that McKenzie's election as mayor was "political thuggery." The PA left the coalition because of this report. McKenzie was elected unopposed in April, after he was elected to the Laingsburg Municipality Council. He was then sent to the district council as its representative.
It was then confirmed by PA deputy president Kenny Kunene to Daily Maverick that the party had broken off its coalition with the DA in the Western Cape, which meant that Matzikama and Knysna municipalities were no longer part of the deal. Last Thursday, the Knysna Municipality said that PA councillor Waleed Grootboom had resigned from the DA-led mayoral committee, but that he was still a regular councillor.
During a briefing on Tuesday, Boks said that he had sent a letter to the town's municipal manager resigning as a council member. Having Boks resign means that a by-election in Ward 7 will have to be held. Kunene told the Daily Maverick that the party would run in the by-election. When he spoke about the two men, he said, "We wish them well in their new political home and personal endeavors." He said that the party stood by its decision to leave the coalition and didn't change its mind.
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