The South African Communist Party (SACP) Western Cape chairperson Anthony Dietrich on Sunday expressed concern at the growth of the Democratic Alliance (DA), saying the party was using the Western Cape to take over the country.

"Here in the Western Cape, we have a particular fight to fight. The Democratic Alliance has used the platform of the Western Cape to plot to take over this country," Dietrich said.

He was addressing a crowd of African National Congress (ANC) supporters at the memorial service of the late Judge Essa Moosa who died on Sunday, February 26, at the age of 81.

Dietrich said poor people were being pushed out of Cape Town while the "capitalist middle class" took over.

"They [the DA] would implement a programme that is seen unrolling here in the Western Cape, and at the centre of that programme is a new liberal agenda," he said.

"Properties are currently being pushed up, to the point that people no longer can afford to live close to the city."

Dietrich said it was essential that the alliance targeted the Western Cape.

"When are we, as an alliance, going to take up that issue? When are we, as an alliance, going to disrupt the DA's programme?" Dietrich asked.

He continued his address by calling for radical economic transformation.

"We are not talking about radical looting, we are talking about radical economic transformation.

"It has got to do with the socialisation of capital to ensure the vast majority of the working class is catered for and can benefit from the resources of this country."

ANC alliance members used Moosa's memorial service to express concern about the direction the tripartite alliance was taking.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions' Tony Ehrenreich said Moosa had taught South Africans that liberation was not isolated to voting and "ensuring that [the] black wealthy class legitimises the grand theft of apartheid".

Meanwhile, Deputy International Relations Minister Nomaindia Mfeketo urged ANC members to restore the region's structures.

"The branches in the Western Cape used to be strong. It is up to us if we want to destroy the work done by comrade Essa and many many others, but we destroy it at our own peril," she said.