Debating Government and Opposition in South Africa

An American presidential candidate of one of the smaller US parties once said that the only difference between a one-party state and two-party state is one political party. In his view this is by far not enough of a safeguard.I tend to agree with this view. The concept of a so-called two-party system, which used to be common to most Westminster-type democracies for decades, seems to be on the decline. Even in the UK, growing support for the Liberal Democrats and to a lesser extent niche parties such as the Scottish National Party in all likelihood brought an end to the concept of a two-party system.

If this is happening in the cradle of Westminster-politics, why should South Africa then cling to the outdated idea of a two-party democracy?

1. The electoral system

The concept of multi-party democracy, as opposed to two-party democracy, is an inherent characteristic of the electoral system of proportional representation. The fact that our constitution entrenches proportional representation is another factor that distinguishes South Africa from a country like Zimbabwe, where the constituency system has prevailed since independence in 1980. The dilemma of parliamentary opposition in Zimbabwe was not per se a fragmented opposition but the fact that the constituency-based electoral system made it virtually impossible for the huge variety of opposition parties to gain any parliamentary representation for most of the first two decades of Zimbabwe’s independence. This resulted in Zanu-PF virtually gaining as many as 90% of the seats in the Zimbabwean parliament during its first four elections. No wonder that Mr. Mugabe lost his mind when he was all of a sudden faced with an opposition, appearing from nowhere that was able to gain more votes than Zanu-PF in 2000.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a misconception amongst South African opposition voters about the benefits of a system of proportional representation. These misconceptions were entrenched in 1994 by deliberate propaganda by the National Party urging voters to vote for the NP as the major opposition party to and “unite against the ANC”. This propaganda was used very efficiently by the National Party to frustrate the smaller opposition parties at the time such as the Freedom Front and the Democratic Party. The tables were however turned in 1999 when the Democratic Party succeeded in replacing the NP as second largest party, after an election where the Democratic Party actually managed to become the official opposition by cannibalizing parties contesting for the so-called white vote. Given this piece of history, it is somewhat ironic when Tony Leon recently accused the Freedom Front and the Independent Democrats of cannibalizing the opposition, after his party surprisingly lost a by-election in Vanderbijlpark against the Freedom Front.

2. Trends in party support

Ever since the DA (then DP) became the so-called official opposition in 1999, the party did not hesitate to follow exactly the same strategy through which the NP had previously frustrated smaller parties and placed opposition-voters on a hunger-diet. The controversial comparative marketing, with which the DA in its’ 2004 election campaign attacked the Freedom Front and the Independent Democrats, has brought opposition politics to its lowest level yet. Interestingly enough, the result of a very expensive and extremely aggressive DA-election campaign was that the party did not make a dent in the support for the ANC and the opposition in totality was worse off after the 2004 election than it had been five years previously. The role of the IFP as opposition party the past 10 years is also interesting. The IFP has, for the largest part of the past 10 years, succeeded in a unique way to play a part in both government and opposition.

After the election of 1999 the IFP had 34 parliamentary seats in contrast to the 38 of the DP. The IFP was after the 1999 elections still a power to be reckoned with in the opposition politics. Since the contentious floor crossing legislation were passed with the support of the ANC, DA and NNP in 2002, an apparent breach in trust has developed between the ANC and the IFP. Dr. Buthulezi, as Minister, was increasingly marginalized and the way, especially, in which the ANC frustrated the passing of Buthelezi’s immigration legislation, raised eye-brows. The IFP’s strategic change in direction towards playing a stronger opposition role in 2002 appeared on the surface to be the most logical option for the IFP.The so-called “Coalition for Change” between the DA and the IFP was announced with big fanfare in 2003. Coalition-forming in a multi-party system is a normal occurrence. The forming of a coalition before an election is however unusual and has little value other than for marketing purposes.The question remains why the DA put such an effort in forming the “Coalition for Change” with the IFP. Only two years before in 2000, the DA published a document with the title “Local Government Elections – Candidate training Manual”. In a sub-section of the manual dealing with other political parties, the DA states:Voters do not have time for long-winded answers. A useful campaign adage worth remembering is “if you’re explaining, you’re losing”. (So much for a culture of democratic debate.)

They then deal with a variety of quick retorts with which voters can be put off other political parties. Of the IFP the DA says:“They have proved to be the most useless of all provincial governments. They want to go back hundreds of years by giving much more power to the King and tribal chiefs in the “kingdom” of KZN – They also want to spend billions of rand on taxpayers’ money on building a capital in the bush at Ulundi.”Observers agreed after the election, that two parties in particular gained from the so-called “Coalition for Change” – the DA and the ANC. The DA – because it helped the party convince white voters especially to believe that a political alternative to the ANC (with substatial black support) eventually existed; and The ANC – because it was unthinkable for thousands of IFP supporters to vote for a coalition with a so-called white elite.The big looser unfortunately was the IFP. The party fell back to become the second largest in KwaZulu-Natal and the support of its “coalition partner” was insufficient to enable the IFP to maintain its control of KZN. For the IFP the coalition with the DA was in all likelihood the proverbial “kiss of death”.

On 14 August 2004 the KZN-congress of the DA accepted a motion that an appeal be made to the DA federal council and federal congress to re-consider the “Coalition for Change” and to take note of the opposition of the KZN congress to the agreement with the IFP.

It therefore appears as if the marriage of convenience with the IFP in 2002 had been – just like the marriage of convenience with the NNP in 2000 – a striking example of a “give-and-take” relationship: the partner gave and the DA took. In the process the DA walked away every time stronger and the opposition in its entirety, weaker. It is of course correct that the aim of any political party is to obtain votes. But when a party, in its efforts to obtain votes, has to arbitrarily conclude agreements just to terminate them again, it points to a lack of good faith that not only disappoints voters but is extremely harmful to opposition politics in South Africa.

3. The ANC’s centralizing of power

With the election in 1994 the ANC did not obtain a two-third majority and the support of more than one party was needed to finalize the Constitution in 1996. With the election of 1999 the ANC ended very close to a two-thirds majority and thanks to the Minority Front initially and the floor-crossing legislation later the ANC did indeed obtain a two-thirds majority. This year the ANC obtained 70% of the votes.The centralizing of all political power reflects however not only in the representation of parties in the parliament but also in the relationship in which the different spheres of government – national, provincial and municipal – act toward each other. Whilst provincial borders are entrenched in the Constitution, municipal borders are freely changeable to the judgment of the Municipal Demarcation Board. The Demarcation Board is criticized often that it manipulates the demarcation of municipal borders to the advantage of the ANC, without taking into consideration the community demography. As an example, during the previous round of demarcations, Hammanskraal and Ga-Rankuwa from the Northwest Province were added to Pretoria and Centurion from the Gauteng province to form the Tshwane Metro-Council. So too, a ward demarcation of the Tembalihle-municipality in the Northern Cape, was dealt with in such a manner that the self-sufficient town of Orania was incorporated, as an insignificant voting district, into a ward with an informal settlement next to Hopetown, 40 km further away.

In this increasing centralization of government structures, the government is increasingly becoming estranged from communities that should be served and it augurs ill for local communities in South Africa.The dilemma of the South African democracy is not the existence of a variety of opposition parties – but rather the fact that the ANC is becoming too powerful and the principles of federalism are not adhered to sufficiently.

4. The role of the Freedom Front Plus

The Freedom Front Plus wants to distinguish itself, as a niche party, that focuses on the special interests of the Afrikaans community in particular: a Christian value system and the establishment of a culture of minority- and community rights in politics. These interests become increasingly relevant while Afrikaners are marginalized as the policies of the government such as affirmative action, black economic empowerment, centralizing of decision making powers and a rather unconvincing commitment to the constitutional principal of multi-lingualism, take effect.

The question however is how these interests can be served if a party receives less than 2% of national support and by definition is limited to a ceiling of 6% - that being Afrikaner voters. The answer to this is found, especially, in the nature of proportional multi-party democracy. In most democracies with similar systems, the dominant party seldom has more than 40% of the support. That makes the forming of coalitions after elections an integral part of the political process and also increases the importance of smaller niche-parties. We foresee that this should become a likely scenario at national level within the next decade.

Furthermore, this scenario technically already exists in two provinces and a number of municipalities all over the country.

In as far as the South African democracy does not yet conform to the these characteristics at national and provincial level, the Freedom Front Plus makes use of alternative opposition instruments that include lobbying, litigation, negotiation and making use of the State Institutions Supporting Constitutional Democracy.

The Freedom Front Plus has for instance already successfully approached the Human Rights Commission to have the slogan “Kill the Boer – kill the farmer” declared as hate speech and therefore prohibited. The party furthermore succeeded to convince the ANC to make concessions that made it possible for certain South Africans in foreign countries to vote in general elections.

Due to complaints lodged by the Freedom Front Plus, parliament and certain municipalities have been forced to honour the principle of multi-lingualism. Other organs of a democracy such as the Auditor-General and the Pan South African Language Board have already proven themselves in certain cases to be worthy guardians of democracy and diversity.

5. The Future

Whilst the Freedom Front Plus is committed to multi-party democracy, national reconciliation and peaceful co-existence, we can not keep us blind to the shortcomings that exist in our constitutional system. Even though the constitution is one of the most progressive and liberal constitutions in the world, the open-ended restrictions placed, in the name of affirmative action, upon the right to equality and the property-right clause, is a source of concern for the future. The diminishing federal principles (largely due to the current dominant position of the ANC) and the defective protection of acknowledged minority rights such as mother-tongue education, as far as we are concerned, are in-completed issues that once again should be placed on the national agenda.The Freedom Front Plus will keep these issues on the agenda, until South Africa truly offers a home to all its’ communities.