DA tells Cape Town voters to stay in the queue as it claims 51% in the city

The Democratic Alliance spent election day telling Cape Town voters to get to their stations, stay in the line and cast a ballot, in a post from its official X account that put its own polling figure for the city at 51%.

The party framed the choice in the city as one between its own control and what it called coalition chaos. “Don’t risk coalition chaos!” the post read, before urging voters not to “leave the future of your town or city to chance.”

The 51% figure is the party’s own claim, published by the DA on its account, and not an independently published poll result. The post does not say which survey it comes from, when it was conducted or what its margin of error is. The Enquirer has not verified the number.

What the post does establish is the party’s closing argument and its turnout strategy. With the figure sitting at 51%, the DA presented every vote as decisive, a framing that points to the difference between a straight majority in the city and a result that would require a coalition arrangement.

The post carries a photograph from the party and the hashtag #VoteDA. It names no opponent and makes no specific policy promise, resting instead on the contrast between the DA in control and a coalition outcome.

Coalitions have been the live question in South African metros since the 2021 local government elections, when several large councils passed into multi-party arrangements. The DA’s warning is a position it is putting to voters, and it is reported here as the party’s argument rather than as a finding about what a coalition would produce.

The DA’s record in Cape Town, where it has held the metro through successive elections, is the ground on which that argument is being made. Voters in the city are weighing that record against the alternatives on the ballot as polling stations close.