DA and FF Plus make amends in George to form new coalition ahead of 2026 elections

Browen Johnson, the current deputy mayor of George, will on Friday be elected as the new mayor of the municipality. The announcement was made by his political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), on Tuesday, 18 November, following weeks of upheaval in the municipality.

Three ward councillors have left the DA to join its bitter rival, the Patriotic Alliance (PA), in the last few weeks.

And with the 2026 local government elections looming, it’s become clear that George will become a key battleground in the Western Cape.

Johnson’s appointment was officially announced on Tuesday by the DA’s Western Cape leader, Tertuis Simmers.

He also announced that a new coalition, comprising the DA, Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) and the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), would bring stability to the Garden Route municipality after a period of instability. The new coalition agreement was signed at the media briefing on Tuesday.

Three resignations and instability 

Over the last few weeks, DA ward councillors Marcell Kleynhans, Brendon Adams and Theresa Jeyi resigned from the party. The resignations caused the DA and its coalition partner, the ACDP, to lose their slim majority in the 55-seat council.

Three by-elections will be contested in December, January and February to fill the vacancies.

In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s announcement, PA leader Gayton McKenzie told party supporters via social media that the party would be targeting George Municipality in the 2026 local government elections.

After the 2021 municipal elections, George was one of 16 hung councils in the Western Cape.

The DA, FF Plus and ACDP formed a coalition thereafter, but split in 2024, after the DA removed FF Plus councillors from the mayoral committee in retaliation for the FF Plus voting against the DA in the municipalities of Langeberg (Robertson and Bonnievale) and Oudtshoorn.

Read more: ANC and FF Plus join forces in new local governance model in Western Cape

Now, the two parties have got back together, seemingly only in George, as announced by Simmers on Tuesday.

He said the coalition would be based on stability and transparency, and would be values-driven.

With the coalition now secured, it means there is a multiparty majority of 29 seats, against 23 opposition seats, with three seats vacant.

Irrespective of the three by-elections, Simmers said, “This will be the coalition that remains intact until the end [2026 municipal elections].”

On Friday, the current mayor, Jackie von Brandis, will become the chief whip of the council. The new deputy mayor will be the FF Plus councillor Gert van Niekerk.

PA’s attempts to run George

In a social media video on the weekend, McKenzie claimed the PA needed two more councillors from the DA to walk over to the party for it to have control of council.

“When we have two … we will take over George,” he told supporters.

He claimed that the “FF Plus has no choice but to work with the DA.”

George was a ‘difficult election result’

On Tuesday, FF Plus leader Dr Corné Mulder said, “George was a difficult election result already in 2021,” in reference to George’s status as a hung council.

He said that after the resignation of the three DA councillors, a situation was created where “nobody’s got a majority unless you form a new kind of coalition arrangement.

“From our perspective, we had two options — the one was to form a coalition with the Patriotic Alliance, but that alone would not suffice to then to get the necessary numbers. In a rather large council of 55, you also needed the ANC and the EFF and some other smaller parties, local parties. And we then had to take our options and see what we could do.”

The PA and the African National Congress (ANC) didn’t have the numbers to take the council, said Mulder.

“So we negotiated with the Democratic Alliance, and we did come to an agreement.

“And that is where we are at the moment. If that’s going to be sustainable, we don’t know. It’ll depend if some more councillors resign, but this is typically what happens in the run-up to a new big general local government election.”

That period, Mulder argued, “brings a lot of instability, which I don’t think is necessarily the right thing.

“I don’t think short-term. It may be a short-term gain if you come to an agreement with this party or that party and then they offer you the position of mayor, whatever the case may be, but that is not what it’s supposed to be.

“It must always be what’s in the best interest of the society and the community, and in terms of service delivery, and I always take … a long-term view.

“In other words, it’s no good to try and quickly score some points here or get some position quickly before the local government elections.

“In terms of that, I need to position the party so that we can be seen as a credible party, a trustworthy party that is a reliable partner in coalitions.”

Simmers: It’s about control of George’s resources

The municipality’s 2023/2024 Annual Report stated that the municipality contributed some 40% or R18-billion to the Garden Route’s economy in 2019, almost twice as much as the next biggest economy in the region, Mossel Bay.

In a previous interview with Daily Maverick, Simmers said, “We need to understand that George is a secondary city — it’s one of five [in the Western Cape].

“It’s a city that has a multibillion-rand budget... So, whereas for the DA it’s about values and principles to retain George after the 2026 elections, for other parties, it’s to get their dirty little paws in terms of the procurement processes and the big, big multibillion-rand contracts, which is the transactional side of politics, which is sadly what you are seeing playing out now.” DM