Campaigning a 'reality check', DA's Winde admits as he thanks the Western Cape
16 May 2019
Incoming Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said campaigning was a "reality check" for himself and the DA as they embarked on a "thank you tour" in the Western Cape.
Addressing a jubilant crowd of supporters, or "blue people", Winde also said they managed to prove pollsters wrong with the final numbers in the province.
Held just outside the nerve centre of the Western Cape provincial government on the corner of Long and Dorp streets where many provincial government offices are located, Winde spoke over the microphone to the people who gathered as well as the bureaucrats who fill the offices.
He said: "I can think of no better place to kick off the thank you tour than right here in the middle of the centre of power of the province, where it is the engine room, where we do make the differences for every single person across the province no matter where it is."
Reflecting on the campaign, Winde said "in democracy, I think campaigns, for me, are what brings reality back to politics because we didn't only see the amazing things this government has done in the last 10 years, we didn't only see the schools and the clinics and the roads, we didn't only see the jobs that were created - we didn't only see that".
"What you also took us to is where there is still lots of pain,"
Winde added that the campaign made it clear to him there is a long road ahead.
"What we do, we do for South Africans and our fellow South Africans. What we do, we do because we want to make a difference every single [area] that we touch in this province, every place we want to make better," said Winde.
On the party's win and electoral decline, Winde stated: "We took what the pollsters said we weren't going to do and we made a win a reality."
"Months ago, people said we weren't even going to get 50% in this province and you, you people, the blue people, from the management in our offices to the FSO's, to the people on the ground, to every single blue person in this province...made this 55% a reality."
News24 previously reported that the final Ipsos "Pulse of the People" study, which was conducted in March and April 2019 before the elections, included insights that suggested: "It is unlikely that the DA will win the three provinces they set out to do, but the Western Cape is within reach (although they might need a coalition partner to form a government)." "Today is about thanking all of you who have been involved in this campaign and it has been a long campaign," said Winde.
