The truncated version of my letter, published under the provocative title: “Pious Seepe hasn’t read the literature on political parties” (October 26) contributed little to an important debate. My point was that Sipho Seepe’s sweeping claim that the “silence” of members of the African National Congress on important issues “is a reflection on either their intelligence or moral integrity” reflects little understanding of the role of political parties in democracies.
Parties exist to facilitate concerted action and achieve collective ends. They are vehicles for aggregating preferences, not individual self-expression. Party discipline thus has a functional purpose. It enables a legislature to function effectively and promotes the stability of a government between elections.
Political activists who are moved by a high sense of duty and who join political parties to contribute to a significant cause will therefore exercise their rights as party members so as to foster party unity and facilitate collective agency. They will participate fully and freely in internal debate. But they will consider themselves bound once a decision has been made, even one with which they disagree. And they will eschew public criticism of such decisions, which is often merely self-promotion.
To be sure, public representatives of political parties face moral choices every day. There are times when conscience will require public criticism of party positions and leaders, even resignation. But those committed to a larger cause which they believe their party represents will not lightly, and on one particular issue, arrive at this point. Firoz Cachalia, Johannesburg