Bob Mattes:A SECOND LOOK
Results released by the Opinion ’99 consortium last week indicate that large numbers of voters have, at best, a foggy awareness of their elected leaders.
President Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki are widely known and well-liked. Most people know about most of the major party leaders (but not all), but they do not necessarily think very highly of them.
Bantu Holomisa is fairly widely known, but on balance receives more negative ratings than positive. Mangosuthu Buthelezi is also widely known and widely disliked (outside of his rural KwaZulu-Natal constituency).
Other party leaders are far less-known: one- in-five voters are unable to rate Stanley Mogoba, Tony Leon, Marthinus van Schalkwyk and Constand Viljoen. They are also uniformly unpopular, receiving average ratings under four (of 10).
The “don’t know” numbers are even higher among specific race groups, or in specific provinces. It cannot come as good news to Mogoba that 17% of black voters don’t know enough about him to have an opinion, or to Van Schalkwyk that 16% of white voters and 32% of coloured voters can’t offer an opinion about him. Nor can Leon be thrilled to see that one-third of coloured (33%) and Indian (26%) voters – two apparent target groups of the Democratic Party – remain unaware of him.
The rest of each party’s rank of political leadership seems a dim blur at best, or completely unknown at worst.
A question in the October/November Opinion ’99 survey asked respondents: “Which persons, if any, in the … would appeal to you as a candidate for political office?”
Across all parties, only six politicians are named by more than one-in-10 voters as good candidates for political office: Mbeki (48%), Mandela (22%), Buthelezi (21%), Holomisa (16%), Cyril Ramaphosa (16%) and Leon (10%). Yet two of these six are or will no longer be involved in electoral politics.
While the African National Congress possesses, by far, the most visible leadership “stable”, it is relatively thin. Only three ANC politicians are named by more than 10% of all voters, yet only one (Mbeki) is actively standing for office.
Many prominent ANC office-holders are not even mentioned by one-half of 1%, including several premiers (Makhenkesi Stofile, Manne Dipico and Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri) and several retiring Cabinet ministers (Joe Modise, Alfred Nzo, Ronnie Kasrils and Sibusiso Bengu).
Finally, a host of other ANC parliamentarians and party officials with strong media profiles failed to be mentioned by more than one-half of 1% of all voters, such as Tony Yengeni, Blade Nzimande, Frene Ginwala, Allan Boesak, Chris Nissen, Cheryl Carolus and Jeremy Cronin.
For the rest of the major political parties, the picture is very discouraging. But what is clear is that relatively few people actively think about, or think very highly of, the vast breadth of the nation’s leadership ranks.
While these numbers should command the immediate attention of party leaders and strategists, they should also command the attention of constitutional designers, especially when they re-examine the country’s current voting system following the 1999 election.
These results may not be that discomforting if you believe that government is based primarily on the interactions of corporate entities called political parties.
However, if you believe that political parties are legal fictions, that they cannot exist independently of their members and that only individuals can think, act and choose, these results may indicate a serious crisis in South Africa’s young democratic system and a damning indictment of its present method of voting and choosing legislators and executives.
Democratic elections are not just about selecting corporate entities called political parties. They are also about electing the leaders and other candidates who make up those parties and ultimately make laws and see that they are carried out.
South Africa’s almost pure form of the list proportional representation electoral system has failed to encourage any links between the electorate and its political leaders, and severely damaged those that may have previously existed.
It has removed any incentive for MPs, or even MP “wannabes”, from talking to ordinary voters. The route to office lies through ingratiating yourself with party leadership. Now one way to do this might be to demonstrate popular pull, but not necessarily. Indeed, maverick politicians with public pull may be seen as “populists” dangerous to a well-heeled party rank and file.
In fact, when taken in combination with the Constitution’s anti-defection clause, list proportional representation creates a disincentive for MPs and MLAs to canvass public opinion. Too intimate a knowledge of what constituents think – indeed, if there were constituencies – might create an awkward dissonance between what your voters want and what your party leadership wants.
Given the constitutional arrangements, it is obvious who would win. Thus, only a good democratic conscience would prevent most MPs from asking themselves: why bother to talk to voters in the first place?
Bob Mattes is manager of the Public Opinion Service at Idasa. The comments expressed here are his own and not necessarily those of Idasa or the Opinion ’99 project