LOOKING out of his window at Cape Town's False Bay, Nick Searra acknowledges that things do work better in South Africa's second biggest city, a stronghold of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).
But that doesn't mean he is ready to see the party or its 48-year-old leader John Steenhuisen running the rest of the country.
"Imagine an old white man as the president of South Africa," said Searra, a 44-year-old white Johannesburg native who moved to Cape Town in 2022.
In a seismic shift, voters last week dismantled the majority that the African National Congress (ANC) has held since the end of white minority rule in 1994, leaving the party of the late Nelson Mandela little choice but to seek a coalition with a major rival.
As the second biggest political force with 21.8 per cent of votes, the DA is one of three parties with the clout to help it form a new majority.
"We've said for the last 30 years that the way to rescue South Africa is to break the ANC majority.
"We've done that," Steenhuisen said as the outcome of Wednesday's vote became clear.
Yet in a country with a painful history of codified racism — apartheid — where white South Africans make up just seven per cent of the population, the DA is struggling to shake off an image as a party of rich whites and prove it reflects the make-up and aspirations of all.
For political analyst Melanie Verwoerd, the problem is as much ideological as racial.
"I don't believe that they set out to be a party of white privilege. But they end up being that."
This is a common accusation the DA has repeatedly rejected.
In contrast to South Africa's broader economic stagnation, crisis-level unemployment and crumbling infrastructure, Western Cape, the province the DA has controlled since 2009, has done measurably better.
It boasts the country's lowest jobless rate.
Its main city, Cape Town, is a major tourist destination. Even the country's notorious power cuts are less severe.
According to one opinion survey, Western Cape and Cape Town are viewed as by far South Africa's best governed province and major city.
"It's better than the other provinces," said Lauran Musgrave, 31, a DA supporter. "They are the guys who should be ruling the country."
But in a city that remains heavily segregated, a lingering legacy of apartheid's legal separation of the races, not everyone agrees.
Solly Malatsi, a black DA leader, says the party is making progress with black voters.
"Our support among black voters is on an upward trajectory," he said, claiming the party had improved its scores in predominantly black areas.
In Western Cape, DA officials say the Cape Town and provincial governments spend more on services for poorer areas than wealthy ones.
Zwelivelile "Mandla" Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela and a traditional tribal leader, doesn't buy it.
"As much as they can claim successes, those successes continue to be only for the few.
"The poorest of the poor are still living without any access to drinkable water, without proper sewer systems."
When Phumzile Van Damme joined the DA, she thought she'd found a political home.
Elected to Parliament in 2014 and made the party's national spokesperson, she was among a crop of young black lawmakers, including a new national leader, Mmusi Maimane, focused on making the DA more inclusive.
For a while at least, it looked as if things were heading in the right direction, but that changed after a disappointing 2019 election in which the DA lost a portion of white Afrikaans-speaking voters.
"There was a fear of all these black people coming in ... Look at how much they're changing the party," Van Damme said.
Maimane, the DA's first black leader, resigned, accusing some in the party of undermining his efforts to court black voters. He was replaced by Steenhuisen.
The black DA mayor of Johannesburg also stepped down, followed by other DA lawmakers in the following years, including Van Damme.
She said she does not consider the DA to be racist. It simply reflects the country's broader struggles with race and, to her as a black lawmaker, it no longer felt like a welcome home.
The writers are from Reuters