WeeklySA_AdminBLOODBATH: More than 30 of the 50 parties taking part in the 2024 general elections will end in the political graveyard post May 29 polls…
By Sy Makaringe
“Twenty-twenty-four is our 1994”, so goes the buoyant refrain of new and smaller political parties as the date for what has been dubbed South Africa’s most historic and hotly contested general elections draws hauntingly nearer.
The May 29 polls mark 30 years since the demise of apartheid and the ushering in of a new democratic dispensation that saw the President Nelson Mandela-led ANC taking over power from the whites-only National Party, bringing hope to millions of black South Africans voting for the first time.
The ANC has been in power since but with little to show for it as many people continue to live in abject poverty. For many, hope has turned into despair as the governing party continues to be mired in corruption scandals while failing to deliver services, jobs,housing, roads and reliable water, sanitation and electricity.
The ANC’s myriad failures and dwindling electoral support over the years have fuelled the new and smaller parties’ optimism of causing a major upset at the polls. Calls for change have never been this louder. Talks of a possible coalition government have also given smaller parties hope that they might even become kingmaker or invited to form part of the new regime.
These new political novices must, however, be careful what they wish for because things are not as simple as they seem. What they call their 1994 might end in tears for them, the same way the 1994 wannabes found themselves in the political dustbin ofhistory.
Of the 19 political parties that contested for seats in the National Assembly in 1994, as many as 12 (or 63%) never got to see the inside of parliament thanks to the ruthlessness of the electorate.
Among them were QwaQwa homeland Chief Minister Kenneth Mope’;s DikwankwetlaParty and his Gazankulu counterpart Prof HWE Ntsan’wisi’s Ximoko Progressive Party.
Remember them?
However, some of the parties seemingly entered the 1994 election race just for the fun of it, like the Keep It Straight and Simple, or KISS for short. But transition from apartheid to democracy was a serious business, so voters overwhelmingly gave KISS a vicious kick in the teeth for its silliness.
Similarly, there was no way a party curiously named Sport Organisation for Collective Contributions and Equal Rights was to be taken seriously, so it failed to gain a seat in the National Assembly, as did Luso South African Party, African Moderates Congress Party, Minority Front, among others.
Now, if we were to use the same yardstick, no fewer than 33 of the 52 parties contesting for National Assembly seats in this year’s general elections will make it there. This will leave only 19 or fewer parties to occupy the highly treasured seats in the 400-seat chamber, more than half of whom will not hold more than three seats each.
Those going to parliament will almost certainly include the obvious suspects (ANC, DA,EFF and IFP), the perennial benchwarmers (ACDP, FF+, UDM, Good, Al Jama-ah) and a couple of newbies such as MK Party (if it has not disintegrated by May 29), ActionSA,Rise Mzansi and Build One South Africa.
Most of the rest will, unfortunately, be consigned to the political scrapheap, come Thursday June 1. Take, for example, the Referendum Party. What is a formation called the Referendum Party doing in an election? You may ask.
We have had parties with similar bizarre names over the past six general elections and all of them wilted when crunch time came, because the electorate takes their votes seriously.
They include Abolition of Income Tax and Usury Party, and Government by the People Green Party (1999), United Front Employment Movement of South Africa and The Organisation (2004), Kingdom Governance Movement and Front National (2014), Christian Political Movement and SA Maintenance and Estate Beneficiaries Association (2014).
So, if these parties did not get a look in from the electorate over the past six general elections, what hope do #Hope4SA, Citizens, Organic Humanity Movement, South African Royal Kingdoms Organisation, to name a few parties on this year’s ballot paper, have of causing a major political upset, let alone gaining a couple of seats in the National Assembly?
History suggests they will, unfortunately, not even have a sniff of the parliamentary precinct. One can also almost sense that some parties on the 2024 ballot paper are in it for mischief, to “steal” votes from the dominant ANC. The African Independent Congress (AIC), a party of unknown quantity, successfully did it in the 2014 general elections when it gained three seats it probably did not deserve by coming up with a name whose acronym and colours closely resembled those of the ANC.
With its alphabetical advantage over the ANC, the AIC was placed ahead of the governing party on the ballot paper. This had the effect of many voters placing Xs intended for the ANC alongside the AIC’s name and logo.
As a consequence, the AIC, with no resources to speak of and bereft of electoral machinery and infrastructure, amassed 97 612 votes, outperforming even already established parties such as the PAC and Azapo. Not even Dr Mamphela Ramphele’s well-resourced Agang came close.
The IEC has since resolved the ANC-AIC conundrum by tossing a coin at every election to establish which of the two must be placed first before the other on the ballot. To further lessen the risk of confusion, the name of another contesting political party is placed between the two on the ballot paper.
The trick seems to have worked, to a degree. In the 2019 elections, the number of AIC’s votes was cut down by more than half. It secured two seats in parliament after receiving 48 107 votes.
This has, however, not stopped individuals who want to see themselves in parliament from following the AIC’s example. It was not by accident, I believe, that Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), African Hearts Congress (AHC) and African Movement Congress (AMC) have acronyms that sound and look almost similar to that of the ANC. The aim, I posit, is to confuse the voters.
Even former president Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane, called his stillborn outfit All Game Changers (AGC), hoping to cash in on the confusion.
The Economic Emancipation Forum (EFF) wanted to pull a fast one on Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the 2019 general elections, but it folded when it only attracted 6 321 ballots (or 0,4%) of the vote, never to be heard of again.
Even former ANC secretary general Ace Magashule tried to steal a piece of the ANC after he was unceremoniously booted out of the party by calling his gig the African Congress for Transformation (ACT). But tried as he desperately did, this is probably the final political ACT he will ever perform as his party will not only not make it to parliament but he himself is likely to soon don the orange overalls for corruption.
Villagers in Vhembe District in Limpopo, where the Freedom Front Plus was campaigning for votes after an invitation by the local chief, will be disappointed that they will not find this name on the ballot paper. All that is there is Vryheidsfront Plus, the second-last political party on the ballot. It is a name that many non-Afrikaans speakers will readily make sense of. There goes a chance of the FF+ growing outside its traditional support base of conservative Afrikaners.
This year’s election will likely see the limping Congress of the People (COPE) make its exit from parliamentary politics, 15 years after giving the ANC’s hegemony a big scare.
After all the poll dust has settled, it will be the ANC, the devil the electorate knows, that will be in full control again.
