DURBAN - A COMBINATION of infighting within the ANC and the apparent inability of opposition parties to capitalise on this is one of the reasons behind the emergence of several smaller parties ahead of the local government elections.
This is the view of two analysts after the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) recorded a rise in parties registering for the 2021 local government elections.
“There has been an increase in the number of parties applying for registration, particularly following the announcement of the election date. In the month of July alone, 19 political parties were registered,” said IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela this week.
She added that the registering of political parties was an ongoing process, and there was no cut-off date for parties to register.
Political analyst Professor Bheki Mngomezulu said there was an element of disillusionment among voters over the existing political parties, and this partially created some ground for new ideas in the form of political formations.
“This has been a recurring feature where parties have increased ahead of the elections. It has been the case since the 1994 elections,” said Mngomezulu.
While acknowledging the appetite for new ideas and parties, the analyst noted that many of the formations were not able to sustain much momentum after their formation.
“This is historical when observing how some parties emerged out of disillusion with the existing order, whether you look at the formation of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) whose founding leaders were unhappy with the ANC or Congress of the People (Cope), which was also formed with the idea of providing an alternative to the ANC, they have not done that well after a promising start,” Mngomezulu added.
The analyst noted, however, the EFF presented an exception to the norm of parties that lose momentum after a promising start.
“This is because they have identified young people as their target market, and this is reflected in their leadership structures.
“The lesson here is if the party wants to have a future, it must appeal to young people.”
Another analyst Daniel Silke said that because political parties were easy to form in South Africa, this was one of the reasons that, ahead of each election, new players entered the political field, especially with local government elections.
“Patterns show that small special interests groups have an appeal to local residents because they appear to speak to the prevailing realities on the ground that is why we tend to see more of them making ground during community elections”, said Silke.
The downside of this, however, Silke said, was that many of them appealed to the opposition vote and were not making inroads in the ruling party territory.
“So what this ends up doing is undermine opposition cohesion because all of these small emerging parties tend to be fishing from the same small pond,” the analyst said.
THE MERCURY