A record number of 325 political parties have registered for this year’s local government elections, which is a 62% increase since the 2016 municipal elections.
Political analyst Bheki Mngomezulu says every election since 1994 has seen an increase in the number of parties. He argues that there are a number of reasons why people form new parties. “Some people can’t achieve their goals within their existing parties, others leave their parties out of opportunism, and then there are those who want to take advantage of voters’ dissatisfaction with a party’s poor performance.”
Mngomezulu says there are also political opportunists who cannot move up in an existing party. “Then for them to get an edge, so to speak, they then decide to form their own political parties. And in fact, the same applies also to independent candidates, whose number has also increased significantly. It’s for the same reason by and large. Those people have realised that for so long they are in their old political parties they don’t stand a chance of moving up the ladder. But if they go it alone, even if they get just one seat, that seat will be enough to participate in the government.”
Mngomezulu explains that a political party that manages to win only one seat will find it difficult to deliver on its election promises.
“Even if they do get a seat, you will find that that seat is not going to assist them that much because politics is a numbers game. If you have only one seat and you then participate in that municipality, chances are you may be ostracised. Or else you may be co-opted by some of the very political parties that you are trying to run away from. So that weakens our democracy.”
Discussion: A look at reasons why people form new parties with Prof. Pieter Duvenage:
‘Democratic right’
President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on all South Africans to exercise their democratic right and vote for political parties of their choice on Monday.
On Monday South Africans will go to the polls to elect their new ward and PR councillors. Ramaphosa says people must go out in their numbers to vote for whoever they want as enshrined in the constitution.
