DA launches election game where you drive South Africa's potholed roads to 9pm

The Democratic Alliance wants South Africans to play a driving game. Its official X account posted a link to an online game on Tuesday, asking players whether they can make it to 9pm on Election Day while dodging potholes, pylons and blue-light convoys.

The post, published by @Our_DA, frames the game as a tour of “South Africa’s best and worst-run metros”. Players are invited to “experience the DA difference” on the virtual roads and to “see if you can survive until 9pm on Election Day”. The post carries a link to the game and one photograph.

The pitch is built on the daily conditions drivers navigate: road surfaces, electricity infrastructure and official convoys. The party names no metro, no road and no figure in the post, and it makes no specific claim about which councils are worst run beyond the game’s invitation to compare them.

The post treats Election Day as the finish line, with 9pm as the cut-off players are challenged to reach. Voting stations close at 9pm, and the party is using that deadline as the game’s clock.

The DA has not said how the game scores players, what data sits behind it or how widely it expects it to be shared. The Enquirer has seen only the post and its link.

What the post does establish is that the party is putting money and staff time into a light-hearted digital product rather than a policy statement, and that it wants the state of the country’s roads and metros to be the thing voters are thinking about when they sit down to play.