Cape Independence: A Better Life Than The ANC Can Give Us
It was with a very wry smile that I read Faiez Jacobs's article on Cape Independence.
The ex-ANC MP readily conceded that South Africa was collapsing around our ankles but argued that this forms part of the natural cycle of democratic decline and renewal. I would strongly assert that there is nothing natural whatsoever about the destruction the ANC has caused after three decades in power. Jacobs dismissed the notion that Cape Independence was being driven by a desire to improve the circumstances of the Western Cape people, asserting instead that it was driven by white privilege and anti-black racism.
Jacobs identified corruption, the collapse of infrastructure, unemployment, crime, and inequality as issues which are devastating the Western Cape. Calls for Cape Independence, he says, have not emerged in a vacuum. He is, of course, 100% correct, which makes it all the more odd that he then persists with his claim that racism is the real driving force. Not least because polling has consistently shown that the overwhelming majority of those favourable to the idea of Cape Independence are coloured and not white. There is even a not insignificant amount of black support.
The truth is that most white voters still persist with the fantasy that the DA is going to magically save them through national politics – encouraged of course by the DA’s top-notch propaganda machine. In sharp contrast, the penny has started to drop amongst coloured voters who are turning against the DA in their droves.
The reality that no ANC MP is ever going to admit, and Jacobs has proven he is no exception, is that the list of problems Jacobs reeled off are a direct result of disastrous national government policy – a national government that the majority of Western Cape voters have never once in their lives voted for.
A radical solution which works
The DA has no solution. In 2024, their spin doctors sold the myth of removing the ANC from power via the Multi-Party Charter (MPC), only to prop them up after the elections, and they are already busy with the ‘largest single party’ charade for 2029. Anyone who objectively analyses our election data from 1994 onwards will be under no illusion that the African nationalists and not the DA will be holding the levers of power in 2029. In any coalition talks, the ANC can play the DA off against the EFF and MK. The DA has no such luxury – it is a price taker, not a price maker, as we have so clearly seen in the GNU.
Cape Independence is a radical solution, of this there is no doubt, but it is also one which can work. It addresses the root causes of the problems which Jacobs listed in a way that voting DA or hoping that the ANC leopard will suddenly change its spots never can. Cape Independence will render the question of who is the national government redundant. The Western Cape can choose its own national government and pursue policies which fix our problems rather than perpetuate them. If we had had Cape Independence since 1994 we wouldn’t be in this current mess, and the sooner we achieve it the sooner we can start digging ourselves out of it.
Ask the people what the want
Jacobs spends a fair bit of time arguing that the people of the Western Cape don’t want Cape Independence. There are very few things that the ANC, DA, EFF, and MK can all agree on, but not being willing to ask Western Cape voters what they think about Cape Independence is one of them. The question is not going away and the President and the Premier are habitually dodging accountability and calls for a referendum. The truth is, they all know all too well that there is support – which is exactly why they are so determined not to call one. If they really believed there wasn’t, they could simply call a referendum to coincide with the local government elections. There would be minimal additional costs and the matter could be put to bed once and for all. They won’t.
The motivations for Cape Independence are simple – creating a better life for the Western Cape people. I dream of a safe, vibrant, prosperous, and genuinely non-racial country which offers world-class services to everyone who legally lives here. That isn’t going to happen in South Africa. It can happen in the Cape of Good Hope.
This article was first published in IOL: https://iol.co.za/news/opinion/2026-01-12-phil-craig-responds-to-cape-independence-criticism/
