Jessica Piombo
crossfire
Over the past few weeks a debate has emerged in the pages of the Mail & Guardian over what people who fail to see a viable alternative to the African National Congress should do with their votes in the upcoming local elections.
Glenda Daniels, describing the dilemma of voters disillusioned with the ANC but repelled by the Democratic Alliance, called for the creation of a new party (“Give us a good reason to vote”, October 27 to November 2).
In reply Sean Jacobs and Lynne Abrahams criticised Daniels and others who fail to discuss politics outside of the party political framework (“Another political party isn’t the issue”, November 3 to 9).
Yet, in the context of South Africa’s national and provincial electoral system, it is virtually impossible to conceptualise politics in any terms other than the party political. Because people are elected to the national and provincial governing bodies through political parties, through the party-list proportional representation system, the basic units of participation in Parliament and provincial legislatures are political parties, not individuals.
Parties have the power to “redeploy” MPs and MPLs who fail to carry the party line, which results in politics defined by party dictates rather than individual actors.
Therefore, to criticise Daniels and others for calling for the formation of a new party, one that is a genuine and legitimate alternative to the ANC, overlooks the basic unit of organisation within the South African political system.
Jacobs and Abrahams advocate the emergence of “social movement” politics a politics where people come together around issues, such as anti-privatisation, and build a political movement from there. Different from a political party, these social movements will be built from the ground up, encompassing people from within several of the established political parties.
This insight into the way to form a political movement represents an important contribution to the debate on the shape of national and provincial politics in South Africa.
Yet, this bottom-up approach is not possible in the context of national and provincial politics. If the individual members within a “social movement” want to participate in the legislative process in more than just a lobbying role, they must become MPs and MPLs. To do this, the movement must function as a political party, drafting candidate lists, paying to register in elections and organising national and provincial campaigns. And this requires a more concentrated, top-down approach than Jacobs and Abrahams envisage. In effect, the social movement must become a political party.
It is only when we come to local government that there is scope for individual participation in organised politics. Municipal local governments, by electing representatives through a mixed electoral system of ward candidates and proportional representation seats, allow for independents to participate in government at the local level.
This has led to what can be labelled “the independent phenomenon”: across South Africa nearly 700 people have registered as independent candidates in the local elections. From the ranks of the ANC about 80 people, many of whom are former ANC local councillors, have registered as independents. They represent the stirrings of the left-leaning political movement that has been called for time and again by political analysts in South Africa.
The proportional representation (PR) electoral system, which is often seen to foster the persistence of small parties, thus may actually act as a barrier to entry. The pure party-list PR system compels the predominant perception of politics in party-political terms, and may actually work to prevent the emergence of the social movements that Jacobs and Abrahams advocate.
The only new political force in the June 1999 national and provincial elections was the United Democratic Movement (UDM), whose basic reason for existence was dissatisfaction with the ANC.
The members of the UDM had little in common besides their dislike or dissatisfaction with the ANC. Yet, because of the structure of the party list PR system, these disparate people had to come together in a political party in order to contest the national and provincial elections.
This does not have to happen in the upcoming local elections, because the mix of ward and PR candidacies enables individuals to compete in the electoral arena. Within the ranks of the 690 independent candidates who have registered for the elections, the 80 former ANC individual councillors are joined by a host of politicians who have left the Democratic Alliance (DA) because they feel the New National Party sold its constituents out by joining forces with the Democratic Party.
Across the country disillusioned trade unionists, grassroots activists and civic organisers are also beginning to form alliances of independent candidates and residents’ associations. Many of the former ANC councillors are joining the Anti-Privatisation Forum, not because they need to in order to be eligible for the elections, but because they all have something in common.
The “independent phenomenon” thus forces us to closely examine the electoral system used in South Africa’s national and provincial elections.
The benefits of the PR system are clear: they prevent a zero-sum, win-or-lose election that often can lead to exclusion of minorities and then to violence.
But the PR-party-list system used in South Africa presupposes the existence of multiple, viable and legitimate parties. Whether these parties exist in South Africa is an important question.
Daniels gives voice to the dilemma faced by those who feel that the DA is not a legitimate alternative to the ruling ANC. She reiterates the belief that voter apathy and the difficulty the Independent Electoral Commission has in getting potential voters to register is due to the fact that many people see no point in voting they don’t like the ANC, but they see no other party for which to vote.
The performance of the 80 former ANC councilors and other independents will be telling for the desire of the people for a genuine alternative to the ANC. If these candidates perform well in the local elections it will prove that South Africans are looking for alternatives, but they may not be looking for alternative parties. Alternative viewpoints, expressing the aspirations of the people, based on local issues and home-grown solutions, may not be best expressed in a rigid party structure. This was the basic point of Jacobs and Abrahams, and is one that should be taken very seriously.
The question becomes, then, does South Africa need to reconsider its choice of a party list system on the national and provincial levels?
The Constitution requires an electoral system that is broadly proportional and this is most easily realised through the party-list mechanism. But proportionality can be guaranteed through a variety of mechanisms, such as multiple-candidate wards, which provide for both individual and party participation in the electoral process. The party-list system is not the only way to go and, if it proves to be suppressing change in South Africa, perhaps it is hurting rather than helping South Africa’s democratic development.
Jessica Piombo is a doctoral candidate at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, writing a dissertation on the South African political party system