For the ruling party facing a general election there are huge advantages of incumbency. Many are as unavoidable as they are inevitable.
In South Africa, the African National Congress government can plan its policy roll-out to suit the election timetable. It can back load its most explicit and effective implementation plans to hit the areas where it wants votes most — either in core or marginal areas — in the run-up to the election. It can publish government studies, as it did last November, which extol the virtues of the government’s performance.
All of which is to the advantage of the governing party. And all of which is part of the spoils of victory from last time. If you win, you hold power for five years and are entitled to use it for political ends. Trying to divide party and state in that context is entirely futile.
But there are other goings-on that deserve proper and careful scrutiny in the run-up to an election, and certainly during the campaign period itself.
Ministers start travelling around the country a lot more. They attend functions related to their portfolios, perhaps, but also give electioneering speeches at party events. Government communications go into overdrive. The government still needs to communicate with its citizens but, perhaps, the emphasis of the message happens to coincide with the campaign strategy of the ruling party. Government announcements are made not in Parliament where they should be, but at election rallies.
Are government vehicles being used to transport ministers to places where they electioneer? Are government spin doctors overlapping in some way with party election strategists? They see each other at parties, or at the ANC’s national executive committee, but how deep is the level of cooperation? These are the sort of ques- tions that need to be asked and monitored.
Part of the difficulty is enforceability. Cabinet minister X makes a call to a colleague from his or her office. The public is paying for the call. They should be talking about government business, but in fact they are talking about their party’s election-campaign strategy.
Should there be a rule that says that he or she should not be doing so? Probably. Could it be adequately enforced? Probably not. Or at least not in a way that would make the cost of doing so not outweigh the cost of not doing so.
Which is why the delay around the declaration of an election date is so galling and unnecessary, even though government has now said that President Thabo Mbeki will make the announcement on February 11, after the parliamentary debate on his State of the Nation address.
The South African Constitution creates fixed terms. That is a whole lot better than what I was used to growing up in Britain where the prime minister can go at any time (up to the maximum period of five years). A surprise early election is always a possibility in the United Kingdom; ambushing the opposition is part of the armoury of incumbency.
The South African law says that the election must be held five years later, within 90 days of the date of last election. Even if, as now, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that points to a particular month (April), for a small opposition party the difference between an April 1 and an April 30 election date is huge. Good election campaigning requires good advance planning and detailed administration as well as smart strategy and tactics.
All the opposition parties are now sitting with a massive headache. If, say, they launch their manifesto in early February, should they be planning a two-month or a three-month campaign? How can you spread a budget, with very limited resources, if you do not know if it has to be spread over an eight or a 12 week campaign period? For what dates do you book advertising space or transport or hotels?
Old friends of mine from the Labour Party in Britain tell me with undisguised relish how in 2001 they gorged themselves on the spoils of incumbency when preparing their first defence of Blair’s 1997 landslide election victory — Labour’s first for five elections.
There was genuine public uncertainty about whether it would be a May or June election. But Blair knew and so did his campaign managers, who joyfully block-booked all the good billboard sites around the country for the three-week campaign period leading up to the secret date that only they knew.
Ironically, the foot and mouth epidemic stepped in to spoil the plan and the election was postponed to the autumn, which was an intervening event of suitable eccentricity.
Politics can never insulate itself from the unpredictability of happenstance. But an early announcement of an election date can remove the single most obvious advantage of incumbency enjoyed by the ruling party. In South Africa, the opposition parties have big enough mountains to climb, without this unnecessary iniquity.
The legitimate advantage of incumbency must expire in time for the new election, not on its actual day. The date should be set a minimum of three months ahead by the Independent Electoral Commission and not by the president. As simple as that.