2016 Elections – Free, Fair, or Fraud?

I decided recently to take a look at the candidate lists for our upcoming Local Government elections which, I can tell you, are not as boring as you might think. Obviously lots of characters and perhaps surprisingly, quite a few plots and subplots. The subplots include: seasoned politicians using the system to maximum advantage; families uniting to forge their futures; and individuals milking the system on their way to political stardom, or at least to a place at the public trough.

The system

In order to follow the storyline, an understanding of the basis of our Local Government electoral system is needed. If you have already passed LGE 101, then move on to the next heading, if not then make yourself comfortable and read on.

Our Local Government electoral system is described as a mixed system in that it is half Constituency- based, and half political party-based Proportional Representation (PR). This means that on polling day you receive two ballot papers – one with the individuals standing as Ward candidates for your constituency vote, and one with just the political parties for your PR vote.

After voting is complete, all the votes across all the wards are counted.  In the case of registered political parties, the total of the Ward candidates’ votes and PR votes are then used to determine how many overall seats the party is entitled to. Wards that are won outright by their candidates are subtracted from this overall seat determination, with the remainder being allocated as PR seats. It is important to note here that Independent candidates only appear on the Ward list as they are not entitled to a PR vote. Only registered political parties using the list system qualify to receive 2 votes instead of just the 1.

Registering a political party at municipal level is a fairly simple and inexpensive process, requiring the support of what used to be only 50 but is now 100 registered voters, and a R200 registration fee. National registration requires 500 signatures and a R500 registration fee.

Participating in an election is also relatively inexpensive. Political parties are required to pay deposits of R3500 per contested metro, and R2000 per contested local council, which amounts cover ALL ward and proportional elections in those councils. An independent candidate is required to pay a R1000 deposit to contest a single ward (source IEC 2016 Electoral Handbook). Deposits are refunded if a single council seat is won, irrespective of the number of candidates fielded by a party.

Storyline: Chapter 1 – Seasoned politicians

Most of the long-established parties have canny politicians who can spot an opportunity for electoral advantage from a mile away. This holds particularly true for those parties that have been suffering from dwindling support over the years, and no longer have a sufficient number of suitable candidates to field in all wards of a council. Not to be deterred by this inconvenience, they have taken to fielding the same candidate in multiple wards. A neat solution to personnel shortages, one that allows them to garner double the potential votes in wards that they would otherwise have had only the PR vote to rely upon. In other words they are able to maximise the potential number of votes with minimum personnel.  All of the main parties have adopted this strategy for the upcoming elections, including the ANC, DA and EFF. The most prolific however are: FF+, ACDP, COPE, AZAPO, and the UDM.

Storyline: Chapter 2 – Family Fortunes

While studying the lists it became clear that there are a few “organisations” that look more like a family business than a political party. Generally the same last names, with ID numbers showing clear generational interrelationships.  While it is possible, maybe even likely, that a family would share political viewpoints, it doesn’t seem that many outside of the family share their views.  However, with true family spirit, each has taken on the burden of standing in multiple wards in the hope of spreading their ideology far and wide...... or something. Metro councils are the most attractive for family participation, with as few as 8 candidates taking on the responsibility of standing in 100 wards in Cape Town, 6 candidates standing in 54 wards in PE, 6 candidates taking on 136 wards in Johannesburg, and 6 candidates standing in 113 wards in Tshwane. One has to admire their determination!

Storyline: Chapter 3 – Individual Tenacity

Boldly going where no-one has gone before, these tenacious individuals are taking on the responsibility of standing in most, and in one case every ward in a metro council. Cape Town has the majority of these brave and tenacious people, one person standing in 93, and another in 90 wards of the 116 total wards in Cape Town, but the hands down winner in this category is the solitary candidate of the National People’s Party, who is standing in all 116 wards. Quite remarkable, and one has to admire the stamina needed!

Storyline: Chapter 4 – Is it free, is it fair, or is it fraud?

If you have followed the storyline so far, you should at least be asking the following question:

·  If a political party candidate can only ultimately represent a single ward in a municipality, how on earth can they be allowed to stand as a ward councillor candidate in more than one ward? An independent candidate is restricted to a single ward, so why not party candidates?

By not banning this practice the IEC is disadvantaging independent candidates who must rely on a single ward vote to be successful. A multiple-ward party candidate is unlikely to win every ward, but however many votes they attract will potentially reduce an independent candidate’s possible voting pool.

The IEC is also allowing the PR system itself to be corrupted through the acceptance of ward votes for what are essentially “phantom” ward candidates. The best example is again in Cape Town where, based on the 2011 election results, it will only require around 18 people per constituency to cast votes in their direction either deliberately, or inadvertently through mistaken identity, and a PR seat could be awarded to any of the “also-ran” parties. 

This fundamental flaw in our electoral system reduces the whole PR seat allocation to a lottery, where the ticket price is R3700, and the jackpot stands at around R2.5m in salary alone over the five year term. 

In my view it is not only unfair, but also unconstitutional that political parties are allowed to cheat the system in a way that is tantamount to electoral fraud. What has the IEC been doing with itself all this time? How to handle the situation in the short-term is up for debate, but ultimately the system has to change. If it doesn’t, I advise everyone in the country to co-operate in registering individual political parties. Let’s see if they can fit around 1m parties on a local government ballot paper next time around. 

In Search of Democracy

The outcome of the Brexit vote has been trumpeted as “a victory for democracy”, but a look at the UK referendum voting numbers gives pause for thought on what democracy really means in today’s world.

Needing 50% plus 1 vote for victory, the Bremain camp received 48.1% of the votes cast, and the Brexit camp received 51.9%. For the convenience of our generally abbreviated world, these have been rounded to 48% and 52% respectively.   

A close call, but nonetheless enough to constitute a clear statement by the majority of Brits, don’t you think?  Media coverage certainly compounds the impression that 52% of Brits will wake up happy, and 48% will stay awake worrying where it all went wrong.

However, if the results are adjusted against the total number of registered voters, and not just the 72.2% who turned out, the Bremain camp votes would translate to 35% support, and the Brexit camp to 37% support.  The balance of 28% would be made up of those who either couldn’t vote for one reason or another, idiots who thought the outcome was a foregone conclusion so didn’t bother to vote, and those who couldn’t care less either way.

Forget, for a moment, all the arguments relating to not crying about the result if you have not bothered to vote, and think about the bottom line.  In the UK referendum on EU membership it means that 38% of the voting population have decided the fate of the other 62%.  Looking at it this way, is it really a victory for democracy or does the result merely highlight that democracy is not working quite as well as we think it is, or as was intended?

In the same vein, in South Africa we have seen dramatic declines in terms of both registered voter turnout and, in particular, the percentage turnout based on the voting age population (VAP) which includes eligible, but as yet unregistered voters. 

In the first democratic national election in 1994, registered voter turnout was close to 87%, with a voting age population turnout of 85.5%, which are very good numbers indeed.

20 years later in the 2014 national election, registered voter turnout had declined to 73.5%, but of more concern is that it appears only 54% of the voting age population had bothered to register and vote.[1]

So while the ANC’s 62.15% share of the votes cast in 2014 sounds impressive, once you realise that this translates into a mere 34% of the voting age population,  it becomes another question mark over democracy as practised today. The situation is even worse when it comes to our Local Government elections where there are typically lower voter turnouts than for National elections.

Such numbers beg the question as to why so many people have apparently turned their backs on this hard won privilege. Is it general voter apathy that has befallen the world, in which case should voting be made compulsory to ensure that people fulfil their democratic obligation?

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance[2] has this to say about compulsory voting:

Advocates of compulsory voting argue that decisions made by democratically elected governments are more legitimate when higher proportions of the population participate. If democracy is government by the people, presumably this includes all people, so it is every citizen's responsibility to elect their representatives.

The leading argument against compulsory voting is that it is not consistent with the freedom associated with democracy. Voting is not an intrinsic obligation and enforcement would be an infringement of the citizens' freedoms associated with democracy. Furthermore, is a government really more legitimate if the high turnout is forced on unwilling voters? 

Surely, our history dictates that voting should be an obligation - to serve the memory of the many who fought so hard, and died, to earn full democratic rights for the majority of people? 

Two countries that are particularly admired by South Africans, Australia and Singapore, have compulsory voting. Australia will impose fines of $20 for a first offense, and $50 for subsequent offences, while Singapore removes non-voters from the electoral register until they apply for re-registration. Both countries wave the penalties if non-voters have good reasons for not voting.  As monetary penalties will not work in South Africa, removal from the electoral register is a more manageable solution.

Then again, is compulsory voting the answer, or is there a deeper seated problem with our political system that has caused voter apathy?

In our case, the answer to that rhetorical question lies in our much vaunted Constitution which entrenches our right to vote, but not to choose who stands for election.  Candidate selection, more precisely defined as cadre deployment, is considered to be the divine right of political parties and their leaders.  In effect, democracy, which should be a bottom-up system, has been cunningly morphed into a top-down system whereby politicians and not the people own our so-called democracy.

The state has most certainly been captured, not by commercial interests, but by unaccountable and greedy politicians who have created the environment where opportunists such as the Gupta family can thrive.

It is a great shame that the Local Government electoral system has not already been changed. Perhaps the tragic events in Vuyani and Tshwane could have been avoided. As it is, for the next 5 years, we will not only continue to pay at least twice as many pointless politicians than are needed to run a municipality, but the majority of us will suffer from decreasing levels of service delivery at a disproportionately higher cost. More fuel for the flames of service delivery protests.

One certainty is that before 2019 we must force electoral system changes which will reinvigorate our enthusiasm for democracy. Either we do that, or we may face consequences of a somewhat more “revolutionary” nature.

As for the Brexit result, it will be interesting to see the outcome of a 2^nd referendum, if there is one. But even if the result stands, they can still take pride in their culture of accepting culpability, unlike our local leaders who think it is their duty to keep attorneys and advocates in full employment in order to avoid same.

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[1] Source: Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=246  

[2] Condensed from an article to be found at http://www.idea.int/vt/compulsory_voting.cfm  

Investing your vote

Jacob Zuma was recently quoted as saying “No one else is going to win the elections but the ANC. If you vote for any other party, what will you be voting for? They are not in government and they will never be so there is nothing that they will do for you. If you vote for them you are throwing away your vote, you are not investing it”.  

First of all, there is no such thing as a wasted vote. Even if your party of choice does not win, you have made a mark that might just translate into meaningful change. So NEVER give up on this right that is also a privilege. On the flip-side, looking at the fundamental numbers involved, JZ is more than likely correct in his assertion that the ANC will again be winners.

Even though they have been bleeding support for the last 10 years, generally shedding between 5%-7% in every election cycle[1], the ANC still holds a commanding majority in most local municipalities outside of the Western Cape.

For example, not counting the Metros of Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay, there are 37 local councils in the Eastern Cape, 36 of which were won by the ANC in 2011. On August 3^rd, shifts in support away from the ANC of 5%, 10%, and 14% will lose them their first three councils, but the next closest potential loss will take a shift in support of a possible, but unlikely, 22%.

A combined total of 63 councils in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the Free State were all won by the ANC in 2011. It will take a decline in support of 16%, 18%, and 21% respectively for them to lose control over the first 3 local councils, one in each province. A 27% decline is needed to lose control of the Manguang (Bloemfontein) Metro, and 28% before another 3 local councils are surrendered. On the surface, not too much for the ANC to worry about in terms of control, but plenty for them to worry about in terms of the potentially devastating erosion in their support base.

The ANC seem to be most at risk in the Northern Cape where in 2011 they won 22 of the 27 local councils, but with smaller margins. A 2% shift will see them lose two councils, a 10% away shift and they will lose another one. The biggest change in control will occur at a 14% drop in support where they will lose an additional 7 councils. A shift in support of up to 18% will see the ANC lose 3 more, amounting to a potential loss of 13 councils across the province.

As the DA is traditionally weakest in these predominantly rural provinces, any drop in support for the ANC is likely to be picked up by the EFF or other smaller opposition parties. Even so, it still seems unlikely that the ANC will lose control over the majority of municipalities outside of the Western Cape - unless their campaigning completely implodes.

The real excitement of these elections, though, swirls around control of the Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Nelson Mandela Bay Metro councils. The DA would have us believe that they will win all three outright, but can this ambition be realised? Unfortunately it seems destined to remain a pipe-dream, not because the swing away from the ANC is too big to overcome, but rather that the DA needs unrealistically large swings in their favour to take outright control of these Metros.

In Nelson Mandela Bay for example, a relatively small 7% decline in support will see the ANC lose control of the Metro, but conversely the DA requires a much larger 25% increase in support to fulfil their ambition of taking unfettered control.

Control of Tshwane requires a 13% drop in ANC support coupled with a corresponding 28% increase in DA support, while Johannesburg requires a 17% drop in ANC support with the DA needing an improvement of 44% over their 2011 result to take outright control.

Add the EFF’s inauguration into the local government power-shift equation and it can be reasonably assumed that, should the ANC lose control of any or all of these Metros, then coalition politics is the most likely outcome. An unfathomable aspect is who the coalition bed partners will be, and for how long they will remain faithful to each other, particularly in view of the ideological gymnastics needed to ally in the first place.

In Nelson Mandela Bay it is also difficult to fathom who will get on well enough with Athol Trollip to form a meaningful coalition, and Tshwane is a basket case that needs a serious political overhaul before any alliance might work effectively.

Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, a coalition between the ANC’s Parks Tau and the DA’s Herman Mashaba might be just what the City of Johannesburg, and the country needs. A demonstration that the ANC and DA can make things happen when the requirement is to think together, not just automatically contradict each other. 

These elections are without doubt the most important since 1994. Investing your vote wisely may or may not provide immediate returns regarding municipal control, but a hard enough hit to their support base may prove to the ANC that their only viable damage control mechanism is to recall JZ sooner rather than later. No matter what happens on August 3^rd, if you keep investing your vote wisely, then positive returns will ultimately be realised.

Then again, after all the hype and hope has evaporated, focus must be returned to changing the electoral system for the next round of National and Provincial elections in 2019, and Local Government elections in 2021. Never forget that we have just voted, once again, to pay for at least twice as many politicians than are needed to run municipalities. This before a single cent is spent on service delivery.

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[1] National & Prov: 2009 - 65.9%; 2014 – 62.15%.  Local Gov (PR Vote only): 2006 – 65.67%; 2011 – 62.93%

Cloud Cuckoo Land

(Cloud-cuckoo-land (mass-noun): a state of absurdly over-optimistic fantasy, rather than understanding how things really are. Translation of Greek Nephelokokkugia, the name of the city built by the birds in Aristophanes' comedy Birds, from nephelē 'cloud' + kokkux 'cuckoo'.)

In 1987 Margaret Thatcher, then UK Prime Minister, was incorrectly attributed with saying that anyone who believed the ANC would ever rule South Africa was living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. Contrary to this assertion, apocryphal or not, in 1994 most of us migrated to the ANC-led Rainbow Nation perhaps with some trepidation if white, but also with much hope that interracial harmony would indeed provide a better life for all. In 2016 we have returned to Cloud Cuckoo Land with a vengeance, courtesy of the ANC, the DA, and Julius Malema with his Red Berets.

There is no doubt that the EFF have shaken our traditional establishment to its core and irreversibly changed the political landscape in South Africa, in some ways for the better.

Julius Malema is also undoubtedly a first rate orator, even though he deliberately tailors his speeches to be inflammatory and racially divisive; speeches that stir very positive or highly negative emotions in people, depending upon which side of his argument you are on.  His tactic of continually stepping over the line and then retreating again before anyone can process what has happened, is also working well for him. By the time the ANC or DA react to one outrageous declaration, Malema and the EFF are already on to the next one, leaving their opponents off-balance and scrambling to keep up.

Through this “moving target” strategy, the EFF are rapidly gaining political ground without ever having to provide any substantive evidence that they have the capability or capacity to govern anything. Spouting revolutionary rhetoric and being generally disruptive is easy, whereas presenting pragmatic solutions to the problems we face at local government level is incredibly difficult.

Their 2016 election manifesto contains some practical ambitions, but in the main it can be seen as either a Cloud Cuckoo Land document, or as a cynically populist document deliberately designed to woo the electorate with false promises. Either way, irrespective of how many times they repeat themselves in the 32 pages, some of their main “commitments” will breach the Municipal Finance Management Act, or the Municipal Systems Act, or both. Not forgetting a couple more that will land them back in the Constitutional Court, this time on the wrong end of a judgement.

But of more concern than the viability of their election manifesto, and in accordance with their Marxist-Leninist Fanonian doctrine, the EFF are steadily voicing various justifications for employing revolutionary violence in their quest for regime change. 

If you are sceptical of their intentions and still think the EFF are harmless, consider this:  In his opening remarks to their local government election manifesto Malema says “The EFF’s contestation of political power through elections should however not be mistaken with our revolutionary determination to remove the current government by any other revolutionary means.” followed by: “The forms in which the EFF contests political power will, from time to time, be reviewed in the light of prevailing circumstances”. Will those prevailing circumstances include not doing as well as they would like in the 2016 Local Government Elections?

Malema’s “barrel of a gun” statement during his Al Jazeera interview is at the very least alarming, and possibly even treasonous. In addition, by deliberately and continually provoking their physical ejection from parliament at every available opportunity, the EFF are creating a self-inflicted impression of victimhood that they may ultimately be able to use as an excuse for violent retaliation.

If all the above and other more veiled threats are not enough to spark concern, take a quick look at some quotes from the EFF’s revolutionary role models V I Lenin[1], Chairman Mao Zedong[2] and Frantz Fanon[3]. These should trigger a basic comprehension of where the EFF are coming from, and the potential threat they therefore pose to our fledgling democracy.

But can we really blame them for wanting revolution when it is the ANC and DA who are primarily guilty of creating the environment in which an organisation such as the EFF can flourish?

For the past 22 years, particularly in local government, traditional parties including the DA have used legislative flaws in the Constitution to avoid direct accountability to the electorate.  Poor service delivery as a result of cadre deployment, nepotism, tender fraud, financial mismanagement and corruption can be directly attributed to the unaccountability inherent in the Proportional Representation party list system. Essentially too many unaccountable politicians taking too much from the public purse while making no contribution to service delivery.  For 22 years, the ANC and DA have lived in Cloud Cuckoo Land, believing that this particular political golden goose would keep on laying forever, when they should rather have been concentrating on their responsibility to deliver a better life for all.

The Rainbow Nation may or may not be on its last legs, but the one thing we really don’t need is an EFF-inspired revolution that feeds on racial division and hatred, where they will eventually subjugate, or should that read sub-juju-gate all of us, both black and white, to the whims of a self-styled dictator-in-waiting.

Even if we avoid a violent revolution, nothing will change in local government until the electoral system itself is changed: five yearly cycles of casting a vote, only to be ignored until the next voting cycle comes around.  Another round of cadre deployment, nepotism, corruption etc. and to believe otherwise is to be living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. So stop the negative protests against lack of service delivery, or against Jacob Zuma and his ANC. Fly the coop and use your positive energy to march for changes to the electoral system. March for a peaceful revolution that will break the stranglehold traditional political parties have over us; one that may also rescue us from a revolution of an entirely different kind.

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[1] “Marxists have never forgotten that violence will be an inevitable accompaniment of the collapse of capitalism”: and then “One man with a gun can control 100 without a gun” – VI Lenin

[2] “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”: “The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the highest form of revolution. This Marxist/Leninist principle holds well universally....” -Mao Zedong

[3] “Violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex, and from his despair and inaction. It makes him fearless and restores his self-respect” – Frantz Fanon.

To Break or Brake the ANC?

Listening to all the political rhetoric, we could be forgiven for believing that if we vote for opposition parties in the upcoming local government elections, it will bring about the immediate downfall of Jacob Zuma and South Africa’s ANC National Government. The reality is that, whatever the outcome of these elections, Jacob Zuma could still be with us until at least 2017, and the ANC will most certainly still be running the country until at least 2019.

It is also important to remember that the ANC remains very strong in Kwazulu-Natal, and in the rural areas of other provinces, so the fuss is really only about who will control the Metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.

If you are dreaming of outright DA victories in Johannesburg and Tshwane, then dream on.  The EFF had a strong showing in the 2014 national elections in Gauteng, and has been gaining ground ever since, so coalition politics is a more likely outcome in these two metros. In this case, my question to the electorate, not forgetting that the EFF was spawned from the ANC is: will you be happy with a DA/EFF coalition and, more importantly, will such a coalition actually work? Personally I do not think so as their ideologies are so far apart they should be ethically irreconcilable. Compromises of titanic proportions would be required, such that disagreements could precipitate the same fate for the coalition as the famed ship of that name.  Then what is to happen? Will it be an ANC/EFF coalition, or an ANC/DA coalition?

It also begs the question: is completely fracturing the ANC at this time really worth it when the outcome is continuing dysfunctional governance, where the only winners are the politicians and not us? In any event, a potential fracture will not be so large that an opposition party will freely walk into a metro with an outright majority, except perhaps in Nelson Mandela Bay. In a coalition scenario it may therefore be better that the ANC and DA swallow their political pride and co-operate.  A combination of centre-left and centre-right is infinitely more workable than a centre-right/far-left betrothal. 

Before you reject this idea out of hand, consider what master-tactician Sun Tsu says in his book The Art of War, which is still used today to guide not only military, but also civil and business strategies: “If you surround the enemy, leave an outlet; do not press an enemy that is cornered”. By extending their hand in this way, the DA may give the ANC the outlet they need to prevent a large number of their “cornered” supporters from lashing out, and fracturing the country as a whole.  It is a big decision whether to break or just brake the ANC, which makes it imperative that we understand what we are voting for, instead of just blindly voting against the ANC.

To those who still have the complete destruction of the ANC at the top of their wish-list, I would say that you must be careful what you wish for - it may just be granted. 

The bottom line, though, is that the above is debating issues that would never have occurred if we had an electoral system that promoted constituency accountability above party loyalty. We would now rather be asking the right questions about local service delivery, instead of focusing our efforts on removing a single individual from national office.

Whatever your political affiliation, it is incontrovertible that the electoral system itself needs to be changed, and the sooner the better if we want to ensure “a better life for all” and not just “a better life for politicians”.  

Dysfunctional Democracy or Disengaged Politocracy?

(Politocracy (n) : a multi-party political system where politicians work for the benefit of their parties and not the electorate)

If you can stand back from the political feeding frenzy surrounding the Zuma/Concourt/Gupta soap opera for a moment, please take some time to consider the following:  Why are we allowing politicians to make “defending the Constitution” their main campaign focus for local government elections, and not the ever-deteriorating levels of municipal service delivery?

Local government is, with few exceptions, an unmitigated disaster. By focusing our attention on the supposedly higher ambitions of unseating Jacob Zuma and dismantling the ANC, are opposition politicians hoping that no explanation of their own political shortcomings in local governance will be needed?

Perversely, while it is a direct attack on them by the opposition, the ANC can also benefit from a “national referendum” strategy. The majority of ANC-controlled municipalities are financial and service delivery disasters. Framing the upcoming elections around defending the Organisation therefore serves the ANC better than having to confront their otherwise dismal failure at this level of governance.

The EFF, however, will be the main beneficiaries of a national referendum platform.  They have no track record of actually governing anything, so they are reliant upon a generally populist rhetoric that only really works for them at a national level.  Their increasingly belligerent and militaristic approach may work in parliament, but may not work as well for them on smaller, local stages. In announcing that the April 30^th launch of their election manifesto will “start the march to have Zuma removed”, the EFF have tied their local government election wagon firmly to the more advantageous national referendum train. It remains to be seen whether their manifesto addresses the real challenges of local governance, or turns out to be an empty drum that just makes a lot of noise.

The DA is perhaps a surprise passenger on this journey as they really do have a better story to tell when it comes to local governance. They are nowhere near perfect at it, but they are several light years ahead of the ANC when it comes to service delivery, and most certainly ahead of the EFF who have yet to govern anything at all.  In a properly functioning democracy, this should be the DA’s main thrust when campaigning, yet they have also joined in the populist howling of their main opponents. 

So while we, Joe Public, are being led by the nose down a politically populist path, what are we missing? Of critical importance is that we are missing the opportunity to hold our local government politicians to account.  We should be demanding that they justify proportional representation at this level of governance. Demanding to know why we need so many politicians, costing such a lot of money, to mismanage local government so badly[1]. 

Before I am challenged with the “everyone has a voice” justification for retaining proportional representation, let’s look at a few facts:  The DA and ANC hold 85.1% of all proportional seats across the eight metro councils, which translates into a ratio of 4.5 additional ANC and DA party voices to the 1 voice for “everyone” else. Nationally, excluding the regionally anomalous Kwazulu-Natal, they hold a combined average of 82% of all proportional seats, at a cost of around R1.4bn per year in salaries alone.

Is it really worth taking R1.4bn per year away from service delivery in order to primarily supplement ANC and DA payrolls, and only then give voices to so few others? Voices which, in any event, are generally silenced or ignored by the two main parties? An awful lot of potholes could be fixed, water and sanitation delivered, and electricity supplied for R1.4bn.

Now is the time to listen to Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, who recently said, “Ethical leadership (in South Africa) is not optional, it is a national imperative”.  Therefore, as an imperative, let the present leadership of all political parties give us their ethical justification for continuing with their disengaged politocracy, instead of embracing a true democracy, warts and all.

Sadly, I think the term “ethical politics” is an oxymoron[2], but as a parting thought: If the ANC can engineer an acceptable Zumexit, and time the announcement perfectly, is it possible that they can take the wind completely out of the “national referendum” sails of the opposition, or are they now so internally fractured that recovery is impossible?

Just asking....but having gambled heavily on a national referendum platform, if Zuma is gone, what do the opposition have left in their armoury, and where does that leave us, the paying public, in our quest for accountable local governance? 

Whichever way it turns out for President Zuma, the ANC, EFF and DA et al, one inevitable outcome is that taxpayers will continue to be fleeced by local government politicians for another five years, simply because we have taken our eyes off the ball.  It really is time to change the rules of the game.

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[1] See featured post : Disconnected Priorities

[2] Oxymoron (noun) - a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction e.g. deafening silence, Military Intelligence, civil servant, Microsoft Works etc.

Dishonourably Honourable

It may have been entertaining watching opposition parties line up in parliament to take well-argued and extremely well-aimed pot-shots at President Zuma and the ANC, but behind the theme of all the attacks was their acknowledgement that the efforts to impeach the President were doomed to failure.  In an editorial comment the following day Alec Hogg[1] of Biznews perceptively highlights that the “ANC will Dump Zuma – but only in its own good time”.

It is widely recognised, even within the organisation, that Jacob Zuma has become a liability to the ANC. The longer he stays at the helm the more advantageous it is for opposition parties in the upcoming local government elections. President Zuma’s demise was, and remains inevitable, so why was the opposition so hasty in calling for an impeachment debate?

It beggars belief that the DA and EFF suddenly discovered altruistic streaks in their self-serving political agendas large enough for them to willingly give up this gem of an advantage. Were they really sincerely concerned that the ANC will take too long to do the right thing, or more concerned that the ANC will do the right thing too soon, before they, the main opposition, are able to milk it to their ultimate advantage?

As I suspect that the majority of politicians have altruism erased from their persona at birth, I lean towards the self-serving motive. The most effective ways to drive the ANC into laager and ensure that Jacob Zuma stays in place is to challenge the ANC to recall him, or to try to obtain his removal through the parliamentary impeachment process.

It is too generous to assume that the ANC were about to imminently dump Zuma, as he still enjoys considerable support within the organisation, but by openly challenging the ANC, the opposition have now made it a cast iron certainty that he cannot be dumped any time soon. 

So, political advantage has been gained by the opposition, but at what cost to the country? The impeachment process was really nothing more than the opposition contributing towards what Standard and Poor’s Konrad Reuss describes as “political noise” that will almost certainly have a negative effect on our sovereign credit rating.

Having started the whole debacle, the ANC are not blameless in escalating the political cacophony. They turned up the volume themselves on Friday when first President Zuma, and then Secretary General Gwede Mantashe failed quite spectacularly to accept any responsibility, or pronounce upon any consequences stemming from the Constitutional Court judgement.  Tuesday’s predictable outcome of the impeachment process just ramped up the volume of political noise even further, bringing us ever closer to junk status.

Sadly, and because of this, the EFF & DA are about to turn their Constitutional Court triumph for our democracy and democratic institutions into a facile and pyrrhic victory for politicians. In the 1980’s, British humourist John Cleese produced a 4-part series of corporate training videos entitled “So you want to be a success at selling?  In part 4 “Closing the Sale” one of the strongest messages was that when you have made the sale, stop talking before you say something that makes your customer rethink their decision.  The EFF and DA had made their sale at the Constitutional Court, but they haven’t yet stopped talking.

What this circus really tells us, though, is that none of our politicians puts the country first. They are all so wrapped up in scoring political points in their all-consuming quest for power, that they have lost sight of their true purpose. Their true purpose is not only to uphold and defend the Constitution, but also to always act in the best interests of the country and its people.  In this, they have failed us miserably. 

It most certainly was not in the best interests of the country and its people to push us closer to the potential hardship that will result from junk status, but in true political style they carried on playing the game, even though they had long ago dropped the ball.  

The only thing that will make a difference to all these dishonourable “Honourables” is a change in the electoral system, the need for which is now dire.

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