WeeklySA_AdminPOSTMORTEM: Harsh lessons for political upstarts after – as predicted – the complete rout of 34 small parties at 2024 polls…
By Sy Makaringe
If you want to lead a comfortable lifestyle in South Africa, a lifestyle free of want, craft a fundable business plan, acquire an MBA degree or play the Lotto. Just don’t form a political party because you will almost certainly have your itchy fingers burnt. Badly.
With a hefty six-figure monthly salary, mouth-watering perks and a sizeable pension, coupled with an enhanced public profile and elevated social standing, a seat in parliament can undoubtedly be a life-changing experience for Joe or Josephine Public.
Therefore, it has hardly surprising that, no sooner had President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the election date earlier this year than a staggering14 889 wannabe lawmakers came out of the woodwork to jostle for the 887 available seats in the National Assembly and the various provincial legislatures throughout the country.
Most of these candidates came from already established political parties such as the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP, FF+, UDM, etc, while many others represented new and untested rookie political parties.
In addition, 11 independent candidates also entered the fray following a revision of our electoral laws.
Yet, had these political Johnnies-Come-Lately bothered to study the trends over the previous six general elections, from the dawn of democracy in 1994, they would have stayed at home and put their hefty participation deposits – north of R200 000 – to better use. They would also have spared voters the strain of perusing a long and cumbersome ballot paper teeming with unknowns.
A mere study of the 2019 electoral outcome would have opened their eyes to the reality of possible repeat of a bloodbath visited upon dozens of political parties then caught in a war that wasn’t theirs and for which they were even remotely prepared.
Had leaders of 34 (or 63%) of the 52 political parties heeded the lesson, and not thrown caution to the wind, they would not have blindly walked into the slaughterhouse and face total humiliation.
It was public knowledge that only members of 18 political parties, very close on to the 19 Weekly SA Mirror predicted, will now take their seat when a new parliament is constituted in a week’s time.
The rest – including AIC, ABC, AHC, AMC, APC, NCC, Citizans (a play on the word citizens), ARA, SARA, Africa Africans Reclaim, Able Leadership, etc – were all consigned to electoral oblivion – all with not so much as the sight of door to the 400-seat chamber to glimpse.
Former ANC secretary-general and Free State strongman Ace Magashule was not allowed to have even a peek into the hallowed higher chamber by the voters and remains confined to his native province with a single seat for consolation for his African Transformation Congress (ACT) – a far cry for once-mighty ANC premier of almost a decade.
Some candidates confused the polls for a popularity contest. Two top Xitsonga singers Penny Penny, alias Eric Nkovane, and Benny Mayengani, born Bennett Skheto Baloyi, got a rude awakening that in the real world (and in the words of Shakespeare) a ballot paper and music sheet – never the twain shall meet.
Nkovane, who dumped his position as chairman of the ANC’s July Mawewe branch in Greater Giyani, Limpopo, and as a proportional representative councillor in the local municipality to join and campaign for the newly formed MK Party two weeks before the elections, was left badly bruised after the polls.
His new party, despite its phenomenal electoral success in KwaZulu-Natal and to a certain extent in Gauteng and Mpumalanga, was mercilessly decimated in Greater Giyani, managing to win only 227 from a total of almost 7 500 votes – more than 6 000 of which went to his erstwhile party, the ANC.
As result of its lack-lustre performance in Limpopo, the MK Party managed to secure only one seat in the provincial legislature. Former president Jacob Zuma’s party did not hand the seat to him but to one Velile Cyril Jack, leaving a dejected Papa Penny to serenade himself to wellness, lonesome, perhaps Penny-less – and, worse, without a political home.
Mayengani, a former City of Johannesburg EFF councillor, was disappointed when his Action Alliance Development Party’s election message did not resonate with his own legion of fans, let alone the rest of the electorate, as it attracted a meagre 7 802 votes or 0.05% of the vote, dashing his hopes of transitioning from a councillor to a lawmaker.
Perhaps the biggest casualty in these elections was multimillionaire businessman Herman Mashaba who, after serving as the City of Johannesburg executive mayor for only three years, courtesy of an unwieldy and faulty relationship between the DA, his then party, and Julius Malema’s EFF, thought he was now ready to play in the premier league of politics.
After assembling a strong team of heavyweights he had poached from the DA, Mashaba mounted a spirited campaign under the ActionSA banner to unseat the “corrupt” ANC – albeit at a high cost to his family’s fortunes.
In desperation to ascend to the country’s No 1 job, he gambled his own R4 million to help fund the party’s expensive election campaign. To enhance his “good guy” image ahead of the polls, South Africa’s own Donald Trump-wannabe paid political analyst Prince Mashele a whopping R12,5 million to write his biography, The Outsider, ostensibly to mount his presidential campaign. The book bombed out when the “unauthorised” tag given by the author was found to be false, leading to a fallout with its publishers, Jonathan Ball, who withdrew from the deal.
In the end, Mashaba was rudely floundered when his party had to settle for a mere six seats in the National Assembly, as well as a handful more in two or three provincial legislatures.
Since Mashaba always felt he was presidential material, he would not settle for less in the end, opting to give the role of party leader in Parliament to his erstwhile DA colleague Athol Trollip instead.
Besides ActionSA, Weekly SA Mirror also correctly predicted that Rise Mzansi, established by former newspaper editor Songezo Zibi, and Build One South Africa – under former DA leader Mmusi Maimane – would be among the few parties that would grace the country’s seventh parliament. But their paltry returns on investment – they received two seats each – are hardly enough for them to influence the political discourse with the lofty ideas they espoused before the electorate.
Yet, at least both men and their handful of acolytes, are guaranteed a R1,4 million annual salary each for the next five years.
But money cannot buy you a seat in parliament. Zachie Achmat, who rose to fame for his role in the Action Treatment Campaign in the early days of our democracy, came to this rude realisation when his run as an independent candidate ended with nothing to show for the R11 million he splurged on his colourful election campaign. As predicted, the beleaguered, once-mighty COPE can no longer muster enough zest to cope with the rigours of politics and bowed out with a wimp.
Following it into the political graveyard is the African Independent Congress (AIC), which for years had profited from the confusion around its name and party colours being almost similar to that of the ANC, found that its luck had run out.
We, however, had a huge humble to eat for horribly getting it wrong in our preditions that the ANC would retain its majority. We, like Herman Mashaba, blame it on the MK Party, which performed beyond everybody’s expectations by seizing huge chunks of the electoral support from parties such as the ANC, DA, EFF and IFP.
Here’s hoping that the 2029 ballot paper will not be as overcrowded, and confusing, as the one in last week’s elections.
