Early tallies show that the Democratic Alliance is set to govern the province for the third straight term but one of many thorns in its side, GOOD leader Patricia de Lille, has notched up some support.

By 1pm, newcomers GOOD had 34,000 votes, placed fourth in the rush for seats in the provincial legislature. In addition to the fourth place in the province, the party is placed seventh overall nationally, with only 37% of voting districts counted thus far.

Brett Herron, secretary-general of the party, told Daily Maverick on Thursday that despite the votes being a “long way from finalised” — and the party needed to be cautious at the moment about maintaining this success — “we would be very much happy”.

The party had every reason to be happy — it was formed in December and had been campaigning for around four months and still managed to score 34,034 out of 1.1 million votes.

In Beaufort West, the party managed to score a voting district — coincidentally, this is where party leader Patricia de Lille grew up as a child.

“We should get a mayor in there,” he said jokingly.

Herron described the win as “ very exciting,” and said every area in the province — rural or urban — was important to the party. Each area was unique in it’s challenges and attributes, said Herron.

“We don’t take any votes for granted,” said the secretary-general.

Vote counting still continues nationally, while 38.7% voting districts have completed counting thus far. In the Western Cape, large areas still needed to be counted, including voting districts within the Cape Town metro. DM