The Democratic Party has policies, leaders, energy and razzmatazz — everything except supporters. Marion Edmunds reports from last weekend’s Federal Congress
A Kimberley man walked into his local Democratic Party (DP) office before the last elections and said: “I’m not going to vote for the DP, but I’m registering here because I don’t trust any of the other parties with my registration form.”
This story was told with a wry laugh at the DP’s two- day Federal Congress at Muizenberg, last weekend. At the congress, party leader Tony Leon made an impassioned appeal to the delegates to go forth and get the votes. He is acutely aware that democracy is not about warm fuzzy feelings, its about garnering votes to ensure the party’s survival.
Leon does not pretend that the DP did well in the last elections — the poor showing puzzled many Democratic Party supporters, particularly in the light of the party’s substantial contributions to the multi-party negotiating process, and the obvious support from the editors of many mainstream English-speaking newspapers, just before the elections.
The congress showed that the enigma of the Democratic Party continues — it has much to offer many South Africans, it has given so much, but there has been so little return for its efforts.
Political analyst, Professor Robert Schrire of the University of Cape Town, describes this an example of the unfairness of politics. “Because the DP appeals to ‘thinkers’ it has a very small constituency in South Africa — most of the people here are bound by ethnic ties, and vote according to racial, ethnic or linguistic lines.”
Schrire adds that support within the community of “thinkers” is further shrunken by the fact that the DP is not able to offer patronage in the same way as the National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC).
Academics and intellectuals who want to sit on boards and commissions will be more likely to support the ANC and the NP in public, despite being sympathetic to DP policies, he said.
Leon, however, is determined to ‘reinvent’ the DP, in order to extend its appeal, without abandoning its sound policy base. This was apparent at Muizenberg. Leon and his team worked hard to bring a little soul, a little heart and a little razzmatazz into party proceedings. The congress opened with dried ice smoke, spotlights, video footage of lions roaring and waves crashing, and an emotive DP song that brought everybody to their feet.
“We used to run our politics like a church bazaar,” said Leon in the wake of the congress. “The success of the party will lie in its ability to reinvent itself; we need to project ourselves as a modern party.”
Part of being a modern party, he believes, is to present policy with a “cutting edge”. Leon describes the DP as upholding “liberal democracy”, as having a policy founded in the belief that the individual is the touchstone of value in society.
At the weekend, delegates discussed resolutions arising from the DP’s “Agenda for a Better Country”. The agenda is a weighty document, containing not only policy, but evidence of in-depth research on all major issues.
Crime was one of these issues — a popular talking point in the congress, one that got the speakers to the podium. DP justice spokesman Douglas Gibson hit out with statistics: one murder takes place in South Africa every 29 minutes, one robbery every five minutes and one rape every 18 minutes.
Affirmative action also raised the hackles — while supporting the principle, aggrieved delegates complained that the government’s affirmative action plan had degenerated into “jobs for pals”.
The DP concluded that the state should implement affirmative action without resorting to enforced quotas, nor imposing on the private sector.
The delegates referred to the NP with contempt, almost to the man. Individual delegates tended to be sympathetic to the ANC, but from the podium, speakers kicked against the majority party.
Leon led the assualt: “When we look at present government and thinking, plans and policies, what do we see? We see the trade unions dynamised; the public service politicised; the constitution centralised; private initiative anaesthatised; the gravy train over- subsidised; the opposition demonised and, most destructive of all, the individual neutralised.”
Leon, who opened and closed the congress with stirring speeches, was surprised — pleasantly so — by the fervour of the delegates. He said after the congress that he was confident that the party had a new crop of “salesmen and women” to spread the DP message in all communities, across the racial and ethnic spectrum. “We are in much better shape than we were in April last year, we now have authentic messengers and we are going to work like a guerilla army for the elections,” said Leon this week.
Also in the DP’s favour is the fact that the party does not have a dirty nor a violent past and that it maintains a relatively high media profile, through its substantial contribution to government at national level.
Will all this, the party make-over and fighting talk, persuade more members of the public to vote for the DP this November? Schrire thinks not: “The fate of the DP will be shaped only by the speed with which South Africans are able to throw off their ethnic chains.”