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Pine street in Blue Downs is fittingly a sea of blue announcing the presence of the governing party.
A large group has been bused in from surrounding areas, and they now fill the street singing “Zizojik’izinto”.
Their leader, Mmusi Maimane, is with parliamentary chief whip John Steenhuisen and premier candidate Alan Winde, visiting the home of a family whose child was a victim of gang-related crime.
A volunteer from the local ward says she is excited to see Maimane in person for the first time since joining the party in 2016.
“It was actually my first time voting. The ANC could not get my vote; they are too corrupt and Malema is too aggressive. So I thought I would give Mmusi a try.”
She says she is yet to see the benefits of giving the party her vote, but insists she feels at ease with the party’s leader.
She has lived in Cape Town for 19 years as a back yard dweller with a disabled child.
The chat is interrupted by an older woman on her way to “Pep for a lay-buy”, who wants to know what the excitement is about.
She is told Maimane is doing a door-to-door campaign.
“Akangene anginangxaki ngiyiDA name kaloku. Andinaxesha for abantu abamoshayo, nginenqondo ngeke ngivotele abantu abangenzi [He is welcome here. I am DA myself. I don’t have time for people who loot and I will not vote for them],” she says with a laugh, referring to the ANC.
In a dramatic whisper she says this is not the rural areas where people must be scared to declare who they will vote for even when it is not popular.
Having garnered a comfortable 57% at the polls in 2014, the DA will want to return to government after 8 May.
This is despite infighting last year which saw its own internal polls result in a dip to below 50% as well as the formation of Good, led by former Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, who remains popular with Cape Town residents.
Then there was the tussle of over the premiership between Alan Winde – who emerged victorious – and the party’s provincial leader Bonginkosi Madikizela.
There was also a brief plot twist in which Maimane considered taking the position himself.
Internal polls from earlier this year showed the party had recovered, placing its prospects at 54%.
When Maimane and his team emerge from the house visit, the crowds gather around a Ford Ranger bakkie from which the leader will speak.
There are hundreds of tiny thorns on the ground attaching themselves to shoes and soles which seemingly do nothing to deflate the mood as Steenhuisen kicks things off, feeding the frenzy.
“Ons gaan die Weskaap blou hou [We will keep the Western Cape blue],” he shouts to wild applause, quoting a DA voter registration poster which reads: “Register to vote to keep the ANC and the EFF out the Western Cape.”
Apart from keeping opposition parties outside the Western Cape, what is the DA’s offer?
“We want a job in every home,” Maimane says reiterating his choice slogan for this election.
Speaking on crime he paints a grim picture, saying that the province’s hands are tied until a decision is made to decentralise the police force and allow the provinces to run the show.
He says running the police from Pretoria was an apartheid system which makes no sense in the democratic dispensation.
What of the housing crisis in the city which gets little mention in the DA’s campaigns?
Mayoral committee member of housing in the city Malusi Booi says the city is working as hard as it can to overcome it.
Booi says there is a backlog of more than 300 000 people who are on the data base waiting to get help and that plans are in place to put in a more effective biometric system to keep track of everyone who needs to be attended to.
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