Earlier in the week, the DA's Tertuis Simmers sat in the same BizNews studio and called the Patriotic Alliance a criminal enterprise dressed up as a party. Charles Cilliers, the PA co-founder and former newspaper editor who wrote Gayton McKenzie's life story, came back with his reply. He told Alec Hogg what he made of the vote-buying claims in George, why he believes the DA cannot lead a coalition, and his version of the Joburg deal that collapsed over a single mayoral committee post. He took on the Beaufort West fundraising questions and the "coloured nationalist" label, and explained why the PA would still hold its nose and work with a party it finds nauseating. He would not say what the PA's first demand will be if it holds the balance of power after 4 November..Listen here.Read the Patriotic Alliance's manifesto in full below.Edited transcript of the interview.Alec Hogg (00:01) Well, earlier this week, the Democratic Alliance's Western Cape leader, Tertius Simmers, sat in our studio and called the Patriotic Alliance a criminal enterprise under the guise of a political party. He accused it of buying votes in George with food parcels, cash and worse. He said it wants power without responsibility, and he said the DA will never work with the PA. Strong words, but it is three weeks ahead of the election. The PA deserves to answer all of that, for obvious reasons.Charles Cilliers co-founded the party and wrote Gayton McKenzie's life story. Really good book, Charles. It should be a bestseller. I think people would come to understand your party leader better if they read the book. How's it sold, by the way?Charles Cilliers (00:53) Look, the book is quite old now. Morning, Alec. I think it's going for its twentieth year now. When we published the book in 2006 for the first time, it did really well. I think it's one of the building blocks in our success in business, and I think it really propelled Gayton as well in his professional speaking career. That got us into corporate, got us into mining and, as they say, the rest is history. So it's a book that played a really big part in our lives and we're quite proud of it.Alec Hogg (01:36) Now, you were a journalist, a very senior journalist, before you became a politician. If you were still sitting at The Citizen and you'd seen Tertius Simmers's interview, how would you have reported on it?Charles Cilliers (01:53) Yeah, I think that's a really good way of framing the start of this. I'd say that I would consider it quite a low blow. As a journalist, it's obviously politicking, and he was taking a big chance with saying what he did, because there's this theory that you can get away with something if you say it's hearsay: "I wasn't there myself, I just heard about this."But it's incredibly irresponsible, and I think that most journalists would probably see it that way, that this is a guy who's really, really pushing his luck. That's certainly how I would have seen it as an editor. I think it's just too easy to try to cast aspersions on the PA with that broad brush of "they're just a bunch of criminals, right? So they're obviously going to do all sorts of criminal things."So yeah, as an editor I always took a slightly different view. I think you and I shared some of that, where you would see the news wave move and 95% of journalists kind of go this way, and I would always try and go the other way. And often the other way is really where the facts and the truth lie. Like the day the Phala Phala judgment came in and everybody was saying that the president is finished. If you just took a deep breath and considered the facts, you would have realised that it's not quite so simple. And I think time has shown that that's the case: it wasn't the end of his career as the president. But most journalists were just jumping on that bandwagon.So I'd say that in the case of Tertius Simmers's comments, I don't think any serious journalist takes him seriously, but that doesn't give him a free pass. He still needs to be held to account for some very irresponsible behaviour.Alec Hogg (04:00) You know, I asked him after the interview, obviously, because he'd made some pretty strong statements. It's very difficult when you're in it, and it was live as well. I said, "How do you back this up?" And he sent me what he regards as evidence. He said, "I can't share it because it's in a court case." So what court case is going on at the moment there?Charles Cilliers (04:27) I'm not aware of a court case. Maybe you should ask him for the case numbers, because we're not...Alec Hogg (04:37) Okay. But you guys haven't sued him? You haven't gone to the IEC, the Electoral Commission? None of that's going to court?Charles Cilliers (04:47) The PA's lawyers, I've seen legal papers being drawn up. I'm not sure what's been served or not, but I do know that there's a case pending against him, and I think it's more of a case with the IEC. When you start getting into what may actually be a winnable case in terms of defamation, that is extremely complicated. But we do believe that he has breached some of the more obvious rules of the code of conduct, so we're going to pursue that.But if he's saying that he's got evidence and it's sitting in a case of some sort, that would mean that he's perhaps approached the police, the Hawks. I'm not sure what he's done, but if he's saying that it's sitting in court, then perhaps it's already sitting with the NPA. So why don't...Alec Hogg (05:39) Yeah, yeah. No, what he did was he showed me the evidence. He said, "Please just mention that you've seen it. This is evidence that we are going to be presenting." Because I would have obviously sent that to you; that's what you do. "And please don't share it with anybody else, because we're going to, but just say you have seen it." So that was the point of asking whether or not you know about the case.But let's move on. There's a heck of a lot to cover today. He said, Simmers said, that you are, and I'm quoting verbatim, "a criminal enterprise under the guise of a political party". How do you answer that?Charles Cilliers (06:25) It's simply not true. If he has evidence of any criminal behaviour, and you're saying he's shown it to you, these things can only be judged once they've been subject to testing. So if he has photographs or videos or whatever, then those things need to be looked at objectively, and we need to be given a chance to respond. Because there's an incredible pattern of misbehaviour from this man.If you look at 2023, when we won a by-election in George, he accused the PA of handing out alcohol to people to go and vote. So every time the PA wins any by-election in the Western Cape, this man comes with some kind of outrageous story, because he simply will not concede that he lost. So number one, this is just sore-loser mentality. He can't accept that there was a by-election, he went in there with what he had to offer the voters, he went in with his campaign, and we went in and he lost. And instead of just saying, "Well, the PA beat me," he comes with outlandish theories and stories to say, "No, it must have been because they were giving out food parcels, they were giving out cash, or they were giving people alcohol."Alec Hogg (07:51) Yeah.Charles Cilliers (07:53) And it's very insulting to the voters, because you're looking at large groups of people that vote in a by-election, and you can't just tar them all with the same brush and say they're all alcoholics, or they all need a free lunch, or in this case they're all addicted to drugs and they'll only vote for the PA because they're on drugs.I listened quite carefully to your interview with him, and he categorises the PA voter as one of three things. The PA voter, according to him, is either misinformed, ignorant or on drugs. Those are the only reasons he can think of to vote for the PA. It's incredibly insulting to voters, and I think it speaks to a deeper issue that we've noticed with him and the DA across the Western Cape: they so deeply believe, or have told themselves the story, that they're great, that there's nothing to criticise and they're running the Western Cape brilliantly.But the reality is that they're running it brilliantly if you happen to be in the middle class, or even the upper class if you're that lucky. If you're poor, then the Western Cape is not the heaven that he seems to think it is. And if you listen to him very critically, as I've done, he comes across as a man who actually hates the poor. In the PA, we hate poverty, but we don't hate the poor. I think that's the issue here: he's so dismissive of people who are on the fringes of society.And look at the DA's policies and the way that they govern, the way that they routinely send back vast amounts of money that should have gone to building public housing. That money just doesn't get spent. You get a sense of a party that either doesn't care about the poor or actually actively hates the poor. And in his case, he actually comes across as someone who hates poor people. For that reason, when they vote for the PA, or when he sees a person who's suffering voting for the PA, he doesn't go, "This person is looking for something different from the PA."Charles Cilliers (10:22) He's saying these people are ignorant, or they're stupid, or they're misinformed, or they're on drugs, or they're drinking this alcohol that the PA is supposedly giving them. It's incredibly offensive, Alec.Alec Hogg (10:36) There's no doubt he would deny all of those things, but this is your right of reply, so you're allowed to say it. Let's just go into those by-elections, though. You've won three in a row now in George. When I spoke to Gayton, it feels like just the other day, his prediction was that the PA is going to win George outright. What are your numbers looking like at the moment there?Charles Cilliers (11:00) I think we can win it outright. If you listen to what Tertius Simmers said in your interview, he's conceding that we are the biggest threat to their years of dominance there. He's putting us at second. So it's close. It could go to us, it could go to them. We are doing everything we can and fighting for first place there. But the fact is that we're going to be the significant second or first voice there, and that is what I think we've earned. That's the work that's been done there, and it was done through community activism and solid campaigning.It's hilarious to hear someone from the DA, especially Tertius, talking about negative campaigning, because we don't really do the negative campaigning. It's the DA that does it. We've been going into communities and actually just sharing our campaign message, which is primarily about promoting the PA. Of course we have to deal with the misinformation that comes from the DA, but it's not predicated on putting down any other party. That's not the way that we campaign. It's not "put down the DA, put down the ANC". I think the PA is driven in large part by an adherence to Christian values. So if you go to most of these PA rallies, you hear inspirational messages. It's not a DA-bashing session. That's been my experience, and I think most PA members would agree.Alec Hogg (12:41) Hmm. It could be your secret weapon. I think the country has...Charles Cilliers (12:46) It's not a secret. Not a secret.Alec Hogg (12:48) Yeah. But what could be: when Corné Mulder was here this week, I asked him, and he said, "Well, we are a Christian party." I know that you guys have also put your stake in the ground there. And I asked him whether the DA was a Christian party, and he said he didn't know.Charles Cilliers (13:04) Well, they don't know either.Alec Hogg (13:08) Knysna. Talk to me about Knysna. Simmers says that your party was part of the muscle in a Knysna coalition that argued about who gets what job and which contract. The former mayor, the acting municipal manager and the acting CFO were arrested two weeks ago. You were in that coalition. They weren't your guys who were arrested. What did you know, and what are you going to do, or can you do anything about it?Charles Cilliers (13:30) Yeah, we went into a coalition originally with the DA in Knysna. I remember driving through from Cape Town one day to have a meeting with the DA's mayor at the time, because we were very annoyed at the way that they were just insisting on putting in their candidates for acting posts, particularly the MM. And I had an interaction with Helen Zille at the time. She didn't believe what I was saying to her, because I was saying, "You guys keep talking about us doing cadre deployment, but we have the evidence that you are the ones doing cadre deployment." And she said, "No, I'll get back to you." And she didn't get back to me.Then we had a meeting with the mayor at the time, and he actually almost burst into tears in that meeting, because we were being so firm about the fact that we're not just going to accept whoever they shove down our throats. And I think that's correct. If you're in a coalition, then a spirit of consultation is essential, you have to be willing to collaborate, and you have to be willing to compromise on getting everything your own way. I think that's the problem that we've had with the DA.If you listen to Tertius, he tries to blame us for the chaos in Johannesburg. But I was working myself half to death to save the mayorship of Mpho Phalatse at the time. I think we had a deal three times, desperately trying to have a deal to save that fragile coalition, which was under attack from all sides. And ultimately it cracked. Not because the PA wasn't willing to work with the DA and ActionSA and the Freedom Front and the ACDP and all of those parties. We were perfectly willing to work with them in Joburg. It was simply because the DA arrogantly insisted that we could not have two MMC positions at the time. They would only give us one, even though the second MMC position was coming from another party that was giving it to us, through ActionSA.Charles Cilliers (15:56) And we got a very arrogant message back from the DA's federal executive, or whoever makes these decisions, which we can only assume is driven by Helen Zille, that the PA can only have one portfolio, and if they behave themselves and earn it, then we can review it in a year and see if they can get a second one. We just thought, gosh, that is incredibly insulting and patronising, and I wasn't able to convince the PA leadership that we should continue to have patience with this.If you speak to anyone at a senior level in ActionSA or the Freedom Front, they'll confirm all of this. This is what happened. Everyone was very disappointed that effectively the DA had thrown the city back to the ANC. And it's very ironic that Helen Zille is now prancing around, swimming in potholes. I'm not sure if she's going to abseil off the side of the Transnet building next. I'm not sure what she's going to do next. She believes that she's the solution to these problems, but she is actually the prime cause of many of the problems that she claims to be the solution for.So that's been our problem with the DA. When they turn around and say that we are the cause of the instability, and we are the ones who keep demanding positions and trying to do influence peddling to get contracts and positions for our people, it flies in the face of the facts, of the record of what has actually been going on in these coalitions. It speaks to the fact that it's a risk to vote for the DA in an era of coalitions, because they don't have a governance attitude that lends itself to coalitions. If you think that the DA is going to win outright, then maybe they're the ones for you. But in a municipality where you're going to end up with multiple parties trying to work together, having the DA there is a serious risk to stability, because they are unable to lead a coalition.Charles Cilliers (18:22) The only people that they can work with in a coalition are the ones that basically dance to their tune. And we are not that.Alec Hogg (18:30) Hmm. But Knysna: what's going on there now, with people getting arrested? It sounds like a real mess.Charles Cilliers (18:37) Yeah, I think there's been serious mismanagement there. I know that it's been some time since we removed ourselves from governance in Knysna. I think it reached a point where we were uncomfortable with being part of what we were seeing there. If I'm not mistaken, it's two years or more since we said, "Look, we can't be part of this." So yeah, we would call for full accountability. The law must take its course there, but there are deep, deep concerns, especially in terms of the finances and the procurement and everything that happened there. But we haven't been part of it, Alec, and I think we intentionally removed ourselves from...Alec Hogg (19:22) Charles, the thing that keeps coming up is that fundraiser for Beaufort West, the money that was raised in Johannesburg. Tertius Simmers brought it up again in our conversation. He says the courts have twice told Gayton to cooperate with the investigation. He hasn't, and now he's gone to court to stop it. So if the money went to swimming pools and toilets and whatever, why not just open the books and show?Charles Cilliers (19:57) No, I think that he's mischaracterising that completely, and they've been doing that from the start. They're trying to use the provincial government to fight a political battle there, and I think that is what Gayton has taken exception to. And I think that's what the legal team in the party has also taken exception to: that this is a clear political witch hunt being driven under the guise of governance.If they were interested in actually seeing the work that was delivered, it's very obvious. The pools were fixed, all the bucket toilets were removed. Considerably more than a million rand was spent on the "restore the infrastructure" campaign in Beaufort West and beyond, in Leeu-Gamka and the surrounding areas. So it's not a case of "was the money spent?" It was clearly spent, and that can easily be shown.And that isn't what they're asking for in the court records. They're asking for access to bank accounts, private information. They're on a fishing exercise and they're abusing power. Because if they want to see what was spent and how it was spent, all of that information is available. Millions of rands were invested into the Central Karoo.And there's this narrative that Gayton is no longer welcome there and people no longer respect him there. That's complete rubbish. He's going back there very soon, and I think we'll see the impact that he had there. He always promised he'd only be there for a year. He didn't run away. On day one, he said, "I'll be here for a year," and he stayed for longer than a year because they wanted him to. But he had to go, and I think he's very welcome in the Central Karoo.Alec Hogg (22:05) He also called the PA a coloured nationalist party. Is the PA a coloured party? Because his shtick was, you say to people that coloureds were not white enough back in apartheid and not black enough today.Charles Cilliers (22:27) Yeah, I think it's disingenuous for anyone in the DA to act like they don't want to talk about different races in South Africa. If you look at all of our manifestos going back to 2013, when we first started, we've always said we want to move South Africa to a point where we've actually defeated apartheid. But 1994 was not that moment, because apartheid...Alec Hogg (22:55) Yeah.Charles Cilliers (22:57) ...is still with us in so many legacy forms. If you look at the fact that everyone is still officially classified according to race in this country, it's ridiculous. And Gayton has been very clear about this now for years: he would like to abolish race. You should be a South African and you should be treated the same way as everybody else.When you go to a place like Brazil, I think there are actual criminal penalties attached to even referring to anyone's race. They've managed to move thinking in terms of race to the absolute fringes, and it's socially unacceptable to look at people in that way. So I think we as South Africans don't understand how offensive it is for us to keep looking at each other in terms of race. The PA is deeply opposed to that.But we're also accepting that currently the system is set up to continue this apartheid ideology of race, and the ANC has been pushing this narrative probably more than anybody else. You would know from even looking at Minister Tau these last few days that they're continuing to double down on BEE. The ANC is circling the camp here, trying to protect BEE, but BEE needs to go. It's obvious. I think most people in our society have lost patience with using race cynically to benefit this one or that one or the next one.So we're saying, as the PA, that from our observation, the racial group that has actually carried the heaviest cost from the apartheid legacy continuing to this day is actually the coloured people. And we can go into this; I think it's a whole podcast on its own. We're saying, as the PA, that we are coming from that community, by and large. That is our base. That is where the PA was born, in coloured communities.Alec Hogg (25:05) Mm.Charles Cilliers (25:19) And we are putting issues that are actually quite unique to the coloured grouping on the agenda and at the forefront, and saying: fine, if you want to play the game like this and treat everyone according to race, then we'll come and play the game with you, but then we want the rules to be fair, because right now they're not.And I think that for the DA, which benefits from coloured voters to the extent that it does, to pretend that it doesn't matter and that you shouldn't speak about race is benefiting from the coloured vote without really wanting to do anything in return. We don't believe that's right. So we're upfront about it as the PA: we would like the coloured vote, if you're going to call it a bloc, to consolidate behind the PA. But that is not to the exclusion of anybody else. We have white voters, we have black voters, we have Indian voters, and we're very proud of the fact that we're growing in those demographics. And we want to move society to a point where these labels don't matter any more.Alec Hogg (26:42) Charles, getting back to the interview, Tertius Simmers said that the PA had exploited the George building collapse with the "Mahamba" message about undocumented workers on the site. Was that fair?Charles Cilliers (27:03) I don't think that's fair. You'd have to define what "exploit" means. When it happened, there were serious concerns about how many undocumented migrants were involved on that site, and we know that many died. I think it was fair to ask those questions, because the PA doesn't hide behind the fact that we are extremely concerned about the influx of undocumented migration into this country and the effect that's having. Those are jobs that could have been given to South Africans. And if that was a contributory factor to the tragedy that happened, then that's a question worth asking. But it's their municipality, and if they're allowing contractors to get away with just hiring these undocumented migrants for peanuts, what does that lead to? And then people die. So I do think it was fair to pose those questions.Alec Hogg (28:09) Gayton talked to me the other day about power. It was very interesting, and it might have been a slip of the tongue or something, but he said politics really is about power: the PA wants the power to decide who governs. Let me put it differently. Tertius Simmers's version was that the PA doesn't really want to govern; it just wants to decide who governs. And he used the examples of Knysna, Joburg and Tshwane. Is there a council where the PA's kingmaking has actually made things better?Charles Cilliers (28:55) Yeah, I think that's something for an objective person to make an assessment on. I think we've held true to ourselves, for example, in Johannesburg, where we've been critical of the DA when we've governed with them, we've put our issues on the table, and we've extracted concessions for things that really matter to us. And we've done the same, sometimes with even more frustration, under the ANC mayorship in Johannesburg. There's a lot we're not happy with, and I think it speaks to the difficulty of being in a coalition. You don't call all the shots.So I think the Central Karoo is probably the best example of what PA governance is and can look like if we're in charge and the coalition backs us. For that year, I think fantastic things were happening in Beaufort West and around that area, and that was a coalition with one mind, led by a visionary leader. So for us, that's always our touchstone: look at what's possible, as happened in Beaufort West.I think there's been less success in some of these other coalitions. In Johannesburg, I think it's 12 parties or something in the current coalition, and they sometimes pull in different directions. So we have set out in our manifesto, and I'll send it to you after this, what I think is a unique point in our new manifesto: we explain how we will govern depending on different scenarios. If we have one councillor, this will be what that councillor will do in that municipality. If we have a few councillors, taking you up to if we have a majority, what you can expect from a PA government with a majority. And then how will we behave in a coalition? I think we've learned a lot of lessons from the past five years. I think all parties have.Charles Cilliers (31:20) But I think we're unique in the sense that we've incorporated those lessons into our manifesto now, because most parties write their manifestos as though they're going to win everything, which isn't realistic any more. You need to write a manifesto where you tell the voter, "This is what we will do in different configurations of coalition," and we want to be held to that. So if, after the next election cycle, you look back on the different coalitions that we've been in and you say, "You didn't keep to your manifesto points there," then that will be a valid criticism. We're saying in the manifesto: hold us to it.Alec Hogg (31:58) Mm-hmm. What about the Western Cape in particular? Because Tertius Simmers was saying he'll never work with you, and you do serve at a national level in the same government of national unity. So what's actually happening here in the Western Cape, or is that just politics talking?Charles Cilliers (32:19) I can't speculate on what's going on in his head, but I do know that the DA was not happy with including us in the GNU. At the time, we had signed on exactly the same day as the DA to be in the GNU. Then they tried to turn around and say that there was a clause in the document, I think they called it the statement of intent or something at the time, that said the founding parties would need to agree to let anyone else in. But we were still in that founding stage. Then you had Helen Zille turning around and saying, "No, no, you didn't ask us if the PA can join." And the ANC turned around and said, "Well, we didn't need to ask you. We've opened this and whoever wants to join right now can."If you look at the ten parties that are in the GNU, those are all the parties that asked to be part of it. Allowances were made and they were included, and much to the chagrin of the DA, we are there. Ironically, many of the DA ministers actually work very well with Gayton, and I think that in terms of how cabinet operates, the GNU is actually working quite well. But there's what happens behind closed doors at cabinet and there's what happens now in an election and between parties, and obviously those are very different things.As for someone saying that they'll never work with the PA, I think "never" is a very, very dangerous word in politics. We find someone like Tertius, and the DA generally, nauseating in numerous respects, but we'll hold our nose and we will work with them. We've always said that. There have been times when we get really frustrated and we want to say we'll never work with the DA, but we refrain from that because it's politically irresponsible. Sometimes the voters will need you to work with parties that you may find malodorous.Charles Cilliers (34:42) The voter is going to look at you and say, "You need to find a way to work with these people." So as the PA, we're willing to do it. We're willing to work with anybody, and we've stuck with that. It's still in our manifesto. We're not going to be like ActionSA, which campaigns and gets votes on a now-broken promise that it'll never work with the ANC. And we know how that worked out for them.Alec Hogg (35:07) Mm. I want to go back to George very briefly. The three by-elections that you won there: am I correct that these were all ex-DA councillors who'd moved across to the PA?Charles Cilliers (35:21) What tends to happen with us is the by-election is prompted by the resignation of the DA councillor, but then that's not the person who stands in the by-election. So it's not a case of everyone just voting for the same person. They're voting for the PA. I think we can comfortably say that it's not just a case of "they voted for Thomas, because Thomas was there before". It's a vote for the PA, a hundred percent.Alec Hogg (35:55) Ipsos has you at 8% in Cape Town. What does a good night look like to you on 4 November?Charles Cilliers (37:00) Many analysts who are looking at this very carefully are seeing the very, very real threat to them that they're going to be under 50. Now, they don't want to work with us. To force them to work with us, we'd have to bring them significantly below 50. That's the plan. But as we said in our manifesto, we will work in a particular way depending on the outcome. So we're obviously pushing very, very hard. I think the DA is pushing the lie that we are just looking to install the ANC everywhere. If that is the outcome, then the DA will have played a big role in making that happen.Alec Hogg (37:48) Mm-hmm. If you hold the balance of power in, let's just say, a dozen Western Cape councils (maybe you've got a bigger number than that, but let's use a dozen as a starting point), what would the first non-negotiable demand be?Charles Cilliers (38:08) I think we'd have to play it according to the outcome, and I'm not going to speak for that. I think that's an NEC decision. I'm just an NEC member without office in the PA. So that's a card I think we're going to have to play close to our chest right now. But the history in the PA will always be around positions. We would need to know where our best-placed candidates can be in a position to actually deliver.Because when Gayton says that he's in politics for power, he doesn't mean that in an abstract sense. He means it in the sense that we want to change lives. We want to be able to deliver change, and you can't deliver change if you're not in a position of authority. So it would have to be a discussion around which positions will favour our ability to deliver for the people that voted for us. That's always the starting point for the PA, and from there, I think the manifesto covers how we conduct ourselves in those coalitions.Alec Hogg (39:41) Of the battleground metros, we've spoken about Cape Town. eThekwini: Gayton said he was desperate to get a few percentage points to tip MK into power there. Now, that I found surprising, and I think many others would have as well. What is it about MK that you're seeing that others aren't?Charles Cilliers (40:02) I think that's a question for Gayton in particular. But from my understanding, MK is the prevailing force right now in KZN, so we'll have to see how well they do. The founder of MK is not healthy right now, so we're not sure if that's going to play a role in how well they do. But if you go according to the last election, they have every possibility of actually running eThekwini.I think what Gayton is saying, and I think we're all consistent with this in the PA, is that when we say we're willing to work with anyone, then we can work with MK and govern in eThekwini. We'll have to see how that goes. MK hasn't got any governance record to speak of, so we'd have to see what kind of governance standard they bring, or how they actually transform into a governance role. Right now they've been very good at campaigning. We don't know how well they'll do in running a place.Alec Hogg (41:27) Mm-hmm. Charles, I know you think deeply about these things, and you're based in Gauteng. The three Gauteng metros: how are you seeing them end up after this election?Charles Cilliers (41:39) We had one seat in Tshwane. So when Tertius talks about us contributing to whatever he thinks is wrong in Tshwane, you'd have to ask him, "But how have we done that?" We're very confident that we're going to grow significantly in Tshwane and we'll have more of a say there. In Ekurhuleni, I do see some good growth.And Kenny [Kunene] in particular, as the mayoral candidate in Johannesburg, is extremely confident. We're not always sure that he's going to get quite as many as he's aiming for, but there are some very ambitious targets in the City of Joburg, and I think he's running a good campaign. He's on the ground, he's working very hard. We currently have 11 seats in CoJ, and with the IFP we form that bloc that really determines who governs the city. We're pretty confident that that's going to increase.But the numbers that we're seeing and the projections that we're seeing are quite wildly inconsistent. I do pity pollsters, because the PA is very difficult to poll. Our voters are not necessarily the people that you find that easily with a phone call, and I think we have pockets of support, and maybe even acres of support, in places that the pollsters don't look. So I think in Joburg in particular, we might be a big surprise package.Alec Hogg (43:30) Is it possible that you'd hold your nose and go into coalition with the Democratic Alliance there?Alec Hogg (43:40) You're not ruling anything out, despite what's being said on the campaign trail. Have you got a final point that you'd like to throw back at Tertius Simmers, remembering that this is your opportunity to respond to what he had to say?Charles Cilliers (43:57) I don't know the man. I've just always shaken my head in amazement at his inability to just engage in a fair fight with other parties. But if I could give him some very unwanted advice in his life, it would be to apply the same rules to politics that we apply to sport and business: play it clean, and don't try to blame other people or circumstances for your own failures. So I think it's time that Tertius Simmers starts to take accountability.I thought it was very rich when, this last week or so, the allegation emerged that they had tried to pay one of our members to go and join the DA, and he then said, "Please, let's not get involved in wild allegations; bring evidence." And I thought, well, right back at you, man. Let's trade on evidence and facts. Otherwise, stay in your lane, stick to what you're offering the voter, and stop trying to tar the PA as some kind of criminal organisation as a way to excuse your own failings. That would be my advice to him. I doubt he'll take it.Alec Hogg (45:38) Charles Cilliers is the co-founder of the Patriotic Alliance. 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