Cape Coloured Congress rakes in Cape Town votes in first election, despite no money for posters

• The Cape Coloured Congress contested its first municipal election this year.
• Without money to fund its campaign, its volunteers went door-to-door to encourage people to vote for them.
• Fadiel Adams believes the support they received was from former DA voters.

Without money for party posters or pamphlets and relying on R20 donations and door-to-door campaigning, the Cape Coloured Congress (CCC) has managed to rake in a respectable number of votes in its first local government election in the City of Cape Town.

As numbers from election day start trickling in, the party by lunchtime had already received up to 27% of the vote at some voting centres in Strand, while they were heading for 18% in a ward in Beacon Valley, Mitchells Plain. 

Mayoral candidate Fadiel Adams is expecting a "few more bloody noses" once totals from other areas in Mitchells Plain, Ocean View, Parkwood, Bellville South, Atlantis, and Mamre are counted.

News24 elections forecaster | Real-time projections as the votes continue to be counted

"Considering that we had no money to spend and manpower being a serious issue, I am over the moon [because of] the effort of a handful of volunteers who made this happen," Adams told News24 on Tuesday.

"We can only grow from here."

Fadiel Adams.

News24 Marvin Charles

Adams is adamant that those who made their X next to the CCC were former Democratic Alliance supporters.

"They were our target – everyone who voted for the DA," he said.

He believes "the truth" about the realities facing historically disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the city is what made its message resonate with voters.

READ | Chaos in Eastern Cape as voting data stolen from voting station, protests at 22 stations

"When we speak, it's their story – it's our story. It's the one you don't want to hear but needs to be told. It's the total abuse of coloured people, the disrespect to us, our people. It's about our past, our future, the lack of opportunities – a cocktail of the most dangerous realities that this government has left in our communities.

"We showed GOOD and the Patriotic Alliance that there will only be one voice for coloured people. And we were working with nothing but a R70 000 budget which had to be used for food [for party volunteers]."