African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema's racial rhetoric is a desperate attempt to hang onto a support base in "terminal decline", Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille said on Monday.

"The best nourishment for a democracy is when people use their rights and get rid of the party that has failed them," Zille said in a speech delivered in Potchefstroom.

"This is what people are starting to realise all over South Africa. They see what the ANC has become. And they see Malema's racial rhetoric for what it is - a desperate attempt to hang onto a support base in terminal decline."

Zille said the ANC in the Western Cape was so desperate it had dispatched Malema to hand out food parcels, paid for with taxpayer's money.

"But people are not stupid. They might eat the food, but they don't buy the rhetoric anymore."

She said the DA was set to win towns and cities across South Africa in local government elections in 2011.

"Our recipe for success is simple. We are a party united behind the vision of a better South Africa. We are not a collection of individuals in competition with each other for access to the spoils of power.

"For the next 18 months we will redouble our efforts to connect with people who have been left behind. We will spread our vision of open, opportunity governance far and wide."

She said the people of the Western Cape understood the power of their vote at the last elections.

"They saw that the DA had governed better than the ANC in the City of Cape Town. And they realised that we could govern better in the province too. This is why we won the Western Cape."