Among the major stories of Election’24 is a surging Patriotic Alliance, the ten year old political party which will now be sending its first MPs to the National Assembly – and also filling a significant number of seats in provincial parliaments. The PA’s strategist Charles Cilliers speaks to us from the Results Operating Centre in Gauteng, sharing insights into the major features of South Africa’s surprise-filled National and Provincial Elections. He reckons the over-riding conclusion is that this has been a triumph for SA’s young democracy. He spoke to BizNews editor Alec Hogg.
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Highlights from the interview
In an interview with Alec Hogg, Charles Cilliers of the Patriotic Alliance discussed the party’s performance in the ongoing elections, focusing on results from KZN and the Western Cape. Cilliers noted that while the votes in KZN are still being counted, the party is performing well there. The main focus, however, is on the Western Cape, where the Patriotic Alliance has secured a solid third place with about a third of the votes counted. Cilliers mentioned that they anticipated achieving between 12-15% of the vote and are on track to meet these expectations. He highlighted the importance of the Cape Metro, where a significant portion of the votes come from, and noted that historically strong DA areas like Mitchells Plain are showing signs of shifting support.
Cilliers also discussed the challenges faced by smaller parties like GOOD and the limitations of independent candidates in the South African electoral system. He criticized the attempt to politicize the Israel-Palestine issue, which he felt was a cynical strategy that did not resonate with voters. Looking ahead, he expressed optimism about the Patriotic Alliance’s growth and the potential for other new parties, suggesting that perseverance and grassroots activism are key to long-term success in South African politics.
Edited transcripts from the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
00:00:00:23 – 00:00:24:18 Alec Hogg:
This they call it the ROC, the Results Operating Center. Charles Cilliers from the Patriotic Alliance is there, one of the two breakout parties of the 2024 election. And we’ll see how the PA is feeling about its performance thus far.
00:00:24:20 – 00:00:52:18 Alec Hogg:
Charles, I know you’re in great demand there. What are you guys feeling like? You got 6,660 votes in the last national election. You’re already exponentially greater than that. There are extrapolations that suppose you’re going to come down from around 4% where you’re at the moment. But can you give us just some insights on how you are seeing the results so far, with about a fifth of the votes counted?
00:00:52:20 – 00:01:10:02 Charles Cilliers:
Yeah. So I guess that it is early doors. We’ve had a strong start, and a lot of that has to do with the work that we’ve done in the rural areas. So those are the votes that get counted first. So I guess all eyes are now on what happens in the metros, because those are always the last to be counted.
00:01:10:04 – 00:01:28:11 Charles Cilliers:
And things will change a lot. We know that the ANC has had a better showing in some of the townships, but there are votes waiting for them in places like Soweto. So they are likely to rise a bit. But it’s very unlikely that they are ever going to see 50 again in our lifetimes. But I think that for me…
00:01:28:13 – 00:01:50:02 Charles Cilliers:
One of the standout things from this, one of the big lessons from this, is that the pollsters are going to have to go back and review their methodologies when it comes to parties like the PA, because I don’t think that they’re approaching us correctly. I think that there’s something wrong with the methodology because we were hiding somewhere within the margin of error, and we actually have been bigger than that.
00:01:50:04 – 00:02:12:12 Charles Cilliers:
So, a lot of other parties are being overestimated, and we were being underestimated. So I’d love to see what went wrong with those predictions. But overall, the really big prediction of the ANC coming down below 50 has held true. I think that’s the big story of this election. And obviously, they’re going to need a coalition partner.
00:02:12:14 – 00:02:31:07 Charles Cilliers:
We don’t have any agreement with anyone. We are still pushing hard and hoping that we can bring the DA down below 50. We agree with people like Corne Mulder over that. That’ll be a good thing for democracy. And quite frankly, the DA has had a shockingly negative campaign. They were attacking not just the PA but many parties.
00:02:31:09 – 00:03:02:22 Charles Cilliers:
And we felt that they could have really put their best foot forward and spoken about themselves instead of going after us and trying to lie about us, slandering us, really, and attacking us and trying to drag us to court on everything, on every issue imaginable. And if they have any wisdom, they will go back and say, we tried to throw everything we could at the PA, and they still grew phenomenally, and that should tell them that voters don’t buy that.
00:03:03:00 – 00:03:24:00 Charles Cilliers:
Voters want you to talk about yourself. And they know that they’re lying. They know that 80% of what they’re saying has absolutely no basis in truth, and the other 20% is distorted. And they’re doing that cynically. Right. And this is what I probably feel most proud about in this election, is that the voters have rejected that.
00:03:24:02 – 00:03:42:18 Charles Cilliers:
And the PA is looking incredibly strong in the Western Cape, where we’ve been attacked the most. You know, where John Steenhuisen has been saying, oh, why are they coming here? Why are they not contesting Limpopo or whatever, as if the Western Cape is not a democracy. As though the DA has some kind of entitlement to govern there.
00:03:42:20 – 00:04:04:22 Charles Cilliers:
Until Jesus comes, however you want to say it. In the Northern Cape, we are on track there to possibly be the third biggest party, neck and neck with the EFF at the moment. Hopefully, we can come out third. Hopefully, we can bring the ANC down below 50; it’s not looking promising. But we would really, really like to do that.
00:04:05:00 – 00:04:24:02 Charles Cilliers:
And we’re having a strong showing in the Eastern Cape. We already have one seat there. We hope we can get two or three. That’s particularly unexpected for many people. As for the other provinces, I think obviously Gauteng, we’ve got a very big presence in the south of Joburg. Hopefully, the Patriots came out.
00:04:24:04 – 00:04:44:19 Charles Cilliers:
The Patriots have really come out in this election. And I think we’ve had a lot of support from unexpected quarters. People you wouldn’t expect. We’ve had white Afrikaners that have voted for us. We even got two votes in Orania. Right. I mean, I don’t know if you voted for the EFF in Orania; they got one vote. I think maybe that’s the biggest surprise of the entire election.
00:04:44:21 – 00:05:18:07 Charles Cilliers:
Yeah. I think that’s the biggest surprise of this entire election. So the Gauteng vote is really lagging behind. We’re hoping that’s going to come through strongly for us. And yeah, I think we have a youth contingent that’s voting for the PA primarily because of the appeal of Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene. And we have a lot of black people that have really opened up to the PA, especially the mission that we have with the return of law and order and secure borders.
00:05:18:10 – 00:05:42:14 Charles Cilliers:
I think we’ve probably been the strongest voice to control migration and really seal the borders properly. So I think that’s been the mix. And we’ve shown once and for all that you don’t need a lot of posters to do well in an election. In many ways, posters are litter. People want to know. They want to see people campaigning on the ground, not about posters.
00:05:42:16 – 00:05:45:15 Charles Cilliers:
So that’s a mouthful, Alec, but that’s more or less my story.
00:05:45:18 – 00:06:09:03 Alec Hogg:
Well, I mean, the takeaway there is that somebody in Orania voted for the EFF. Surely, he had a bit too much to drink the night before. But how did you come to see that kind of detail? Is that part of what being a member of a political party gives you, that you can, in fact, drill down to that degree?
Read more: ANC loses ground in early vote tally, risks losing majority for first time since Apartheid
00:06:09:05 – 00:06:33:10 Charles Cilliers:
I think anyone can drill down into the IEC’s results by ward. So Orania is just another ward in terms of the constitutional framework. As much as they might want to leave the country, they haven’t. So the IEC will dutifully go in there. I mean, you see wards here being described as like a tent next to each fence. It’s fine.
00:06:33:12 – 00:06:58:04 Charles Cilliers:
You know, you have VD’s described like that. So the IEC is honestly taking their job of setting up VD’s everywhere where a human being is live and breathing and taking that seriously. And Orania is one of those places. I think if there’s one thing that people can take comfort from, from this election, it’s that democracy is indeed alive and well.
00:06:58:04 – 00:07:16:17 Charles Cilliers:
We might not like everything we see. We might not like who people vote for. But democracy, you know, it’s a bit like that TV show about a good rugby game where they’ll end up saying, you know, rugby was the winner, and truly democracy is the winner here. As much as there were problems with the machines, there were long queues.
00:07:16:19 – 00:07:40:06 Charles Cilliers:
The IEC was overstretched and under-resourced. And you know, we had a lot of issues on the day. At the end of it all, we can still proudly say that they delivered a really good election, democratic and fair. I mean, there’s always issues. There will always be somebody trying to steal a vote here and there, but they’ve delivered a pretty good election as far as we’ve been seeing.
00:07:40:08 – 00:08:03:10 Alec Hogg:
What is likely to be the final outcome from the number of votes that are being received? In the 2019 election, we were at 66%. In the local elections in 2021, we dropped all the way down to 44%. Yesterday, the IEC was saying they expect it to be above 66%. Is it still on target?
00:08:03:12 – 00:08:28:11 Charles Cilliers:
Yeah, I think this has been a high turnout. I’m not sure I really understand all the stats, so I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on what I’m seeing. What I am picking up from being here is that there is a high turnout. There’s a lot more youth than people expected. That kind of stereotype of the apathetic youth, the disaffected youth.
00:08:28:13 – 00:08:49:09 Charles Cilliers:
And I think that’s held true. I think the youth have come to the party on this one. They have come out in numbers. There were very, very long queues at Wits last night that went on for hours and hours after closing time, a testament to the fact that young people are really committed to participating in this election.
00:08:49:10 – 00:09:08:14 Charles Cilliers:
I think they want change, and they’re going to get it. I mean, we’re not sure what that change is going to look like, but, yeah, I can’t say I really understand all of these numbers, but we’ll have time to unpack what’s going on. But, yeah, high voter turnout and some big surprises.
00:09:08:14 – 00:09:13:12 Charles Cilliers:
Obviously, MK being the big talking point of this election.
00:09:13:17 – 00:09:33:07 Alec Hogg:
MK is the one. And you guys as the breakout party. Neither of you had seats. By the current calculations, you’ll have about 50 seats out of a 400-seat parliament between the two of you as things stand now. It could, of course, change and get much bigger or much smaller than that. But that’s a significant impact.
00:09:33:09 – 00:09:52:10 Charles Cilliers:
Yeah. I think that we have emerged as the fastest-growing party. We’ve been saying that. Gayton has been saying that on your show and many other parties have tried to claim that label. ActionSA probably the most, and we’ve been the party saying no, but we are the fastest-growing party, and we’ve proven that.
00:09:52:12 – 00:10:15:06 Charles Cilliers:
I don’t think you can call MK the fastest-growing party because what they are is a party that’s probably going along that COPE, they’re that kind of COPE phenomenon, a breakaway from the ANC that just explodes onto the scene, and they’re just massive. And then it raises questions around sustainability. COPE imploded really quickly.
00:10:15:08 – 00:10:43:09 Charles Cilliers:
We’ve seen fighting within the ranks of MK even earlier than we saw with COPE. So there’s been a lot of infighting within MK even before this election. You have to wonder what’s the future for them if there’s a post-Jacob Zuma world. Can they continue to be this behemoth in our politics that they currently are? The COPE story isn’t promising for them, but maybe they can chart out a different path for themselves.
00:10:43:11 – 00:11:06:08 Charles Cilliers:
If I have to choose between MK and the PA, knowing very little about either party, I would choose the PA because we’ve shown consistent growth. We’ve shown sustainability in our votes, and our growth is based on work on the ground. People are voting for the PA because they like the PA, not because they’re trying to punish the ANC because they feel Zuma got a bad deal.
00:11:06:08 – 00:11:22:19 Charles Cilliers:
It’s not a party that has had this meteoric rise. We’ve had sustainable long-term growth. I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved, and we’re very humbled by it and very grateful to the Patriots for this consistent support.
00:11:22:22 – 00:11:44:09 Alec Hogg:
So, Julius calls his guys the fighters, and you now call your guys the Patriots. That’s very nice. I’d love to just take you through the on-screen results. All right, here in the National Assembly, 20% of the vote, and there you are as the fifth-biggest party, comfortably above the IFP at the moment. But clearly, there’s a lot of votes still to come from KZN.
00:11:45:12 – 00:11:51:11 Alec Hogg:
Are you expecting to end up around this 4% level, Charles, or is it flattering at the moment?
00:11:51:14 – 00:12:15:21 Charles Cilliers:
I think that Gayton and I had a conversation earlier on, and he looked closer to 3%. I mean, we’d love to stay above 4%, right? But I think you’ll recall that when you interviewed me many months ago, you asked me where I think we’re going to land. I said to you, if we get to 3%, I will do somersaults and dance on the ceiling.
00:12:15:23 – 00:12:38:06 Charles Cilliers:
For me, that was always a great result for us. I think that many people in the PA were always privately hoping for something like what we see now. Obviously, you’re going to say more, you know, you’re going to go out there and pitch yourself higher because you have to. You have to aim higher.
00:12:38:06 – 00:12:59:21 Charles Cilliers:
But in reality, a 3% outcome for the PA is incredibly good. We’ve looked at this even before the vote happened to say we can’t lose in this election because we know we’re going to Parliament. We knew that for a fact. We know we’re going to some of these legislatures: Western Cape, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, and Gauteng.
00:12:59:21 – 00:13:37:00 Charles Cilliers:
We know we’re going there, and we’re going there off a zero base. We came into this with absolutely nothing, and we’re leaving with so much. For us, 3% would be amazing. Anything above that right now is an absolute bonus. We still feel that the IFP has an opportunity to perhaps pass us. Where things get complicated with that prediction is that MK is absolutely slaughtering them. They’re slaughtering everybody in KZN, and I think they are doing much more in KZN than anybody even predicted. They are the runaway winners.
00:13:37:02 – 00:13:52:05 Charles Cilliers:
So that is complicating the IFP projections. Who knows, we may sneak home ahead of them, and a fifth-place finish for the PA is just beyond phenomenal.
00:13:52:07 – 00:14:15:15
Alec Hogg: Just to dwell very briefly on KZN with MK at over 40% of the vote, not a lot of the votes have been counted, but indeed, that is a very good performance by any party’s standards. We’ll be watching that as it unfolds. But you guys, the big thing is the Western Cape. I’m going to put that up on our screens.
00:14:15:15 – 00:14:46:06
Alec Hogg: Now, you are at the moment, with about a third of the votes counted, in a very handy third place there, actually running well in double figures as a percentage, as the DA just clings on to its majority. The ANC is sitting at 20%. This was the area where you were always going to do best in relative to the number of provincial seats available. So far, you’re at 11%. Is that in line with your thoughts?
00:14:46:07 – 00:14:49:11
Charles Cilliers: Yeah, I think so. We were looking at about 15% as a kind of upper band for us, so we’re within that 12 to 15% that we were aiming for. We’ll see, because as I said earlier, it’s the rural votes that come in first. We had a strategy of kind of pincering into the metro.
00:15:17:03 – 00:15:40:01
Charles Cilliers: Anybody who understands the Western Cape knows that by far the majority of the votes are coming from the Cape Metro. The Cape Metro dominates that province in a way that many other provinces don’t see. We’re looking to see if we’ll observe the same trends in places like Mitchells Plain, which have historically leaned very heavily towards the DA.
Read more: Alec Hogg: A rational perspective of Election’24 – and what to watch for
00:15:40:03 – 00:16:03:19
Charles Cilliers: What we saw with things like our Athlone rally and some of the trips that Gayton has made into these historically strong DA strongholds is that we’ve made serious inroads. So, the DA may find themselves below 50%, but it all depends on what the Metro has decided. It comes down to the people living in Cape Town right now.
00:16:03:23 – 00:16:11:15
Alec Hogg: Do you have any idea when that result will be through, when the Cape Metro numbers will be available? Because we are already a third of the way through.
00:16:11:17 – 00:16:38:17
Charles Cilliers: As I said, the Metro is always the last to get counted. They’re very complex, and VDs are heavily populated. Historically, Soweto is one of the last places to be counted. But I think some of the bigger townships in Cape Town, like Khayelitsha, also take a long time. So, I expect we’ll start to get a very clear picture after 75% of the vote is counted.
00:16:44:20 – 00:17:04:03
Alec Hogg: Charles, just to close off with some of the other parties. GOOD seems to have hit a brick wall. You mentioned COPE earlier. It’s just about gone, with less than one tenth of 1%. Has the PA really absorbed the GOOD vote? It is in a similar market, I suppose.
00:17:04:08 – 00:17:28:03
Charles Cilliers: Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that we’ve absorbed it. We saw it on the ground with the people who were signing up to the PA. You got a taste of it in that George by-election that we spoke about previously, when the three GOOD councilors vacated those wards. We took those wards off GOOD between the DA and ourselves.
00:17:28:03 – 00:17:53:20
Charles Cilliers: So you had a sense there that GOOD was in trouble. One of the big talking points from this election going forward is going to be the discussion around the way that people tried to politicize the Israel-Palestine issue. They tried to turn that into some kind of campaign vehicle, which personally I felt was a cynical thing to do.
00:17:53:22 – 00:18:28:02
Charles Cilliers: Firstly, as the PA, it didn’t actually make sense unless you say that a two-state solution is a side. But what we’ve seen here is that the parties that have actually come out strongly for Palestine, like GOOD, haven’t translated that into votes. If you look at the performance of the DA, who are also saying two-state solution, and you had people trying to politicize their position on Palestine, it hasn’t hurt them at all. So maybe this is a big lesson to some of these parties who are cynically trying to use the pain of an intractable situation in the Middle East to get people to vote for them. They should be ashamed of themselves. And I’m very happy that the voters have rejected that.
00:18:28:04 – 00:18:48:06
Alec Hogg: What about the two winners, or amongst the winners, in the airtime ahead of the election, Rise Mzansi and BOSA? We don’t see them featuring anywhere. Is this a reflection of not enough votes being counted yet in the areas where they might be strong, or does it show that they really haven’t broken through here? Because at the current level, they’ll be lucky to get one member of Parliament.
00:18:48:13 – 00:19:17:12
Charles Cilliers: Yeah, I mean, I’ve been chatting to the Rise people here at the Rock. They’re incredibly nice individuals, incredibly good people. I like them very much. I haven’t seen anyone from BOSA yet, but what I picked up from them is that they’re in very good spirits. They’ve approached this election with the right attitude of whatever they get, they get, and they’ll learn from it.
00:19:41:13 – 00:19:59:19
Charles Cilliers: I think that their party is getting down to the long haul, a little bit like us. I encourage them to look at the municipal elections as the place where, as a party like they are, they can really break out because they believe in, similar to the PA, doing that work as activists in communities on the ground. I can see that translating into really good support come the next election, 2026 local governance.
00:20:28:04 – 00:20:48:06
Charles Cilliers: I think they’ve got the right idea. As for BOSA, I think that there’s some issues there. One of the big talking points from this election is going to be the absolute futility of being an independent candidate. A lot of that started with Mmusi trying to push this idea that independent candidates should be on the ballot.
00:20:58:10 – 00:21:22:03
Charles Cilliers: I don’t think the South African system is geared to this. The IEC put the independent candidates on the ballot in the form of malicious compliance. They had no hope of getting anywhere. All it’s done is complicated the election for everybody and made it more expensive. I don’t think anybody’s been left better off by the introduction of these independent candidates.
00:21:22:08 – 00:21:44:03
Charles Cilliers: As much as we might say, oh, it’s a wonderful thing for democracy, if we’re very honest about it, it hasn’t worked. It’s a waste of time and money. Maybe somebody will crack it at some point. But you’ve got people like Louis Liebenberg on this independent ballot, and he makes Trump seem like a very reasonable and well-balanced individual.
00:21:44:05 – 00:22:06:17
Charles Cilliers: It takes a kind of crazy person to want to be an independent candidate. That’s why probably one of the craziest people in the country is on the ballot as an independent. An unfortunate story from this election is that the experiment in independent candidates hasn’t worked.
00:22:06:19 – 00:22:30:11
Charles Cilliers: We have to commit to the fact that South Africa is a multi-party democracy. I would love us to have that discussion before the next election of either changing the electoral system properly, where independent candidates get a fair chance, because they’ve been horribly prejudiced in this election, or not allowing them to contest again. I don’t think this current approach will ever work.
00:22:30:13 – 00:22:39:15
Alec Hogg: Charles Cilliers is with the Patriotic Alliance. As you can hear, he’s very upbeat at the moment. We will surely be watching your progress, as we have been doing for some months, as one of the breakout parties of Election 2024.
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